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CYRUS PARDONED <BY HIS FATHER 



ffamous Cbaracters ot IbistotE 

CYRUS 

The Great 

BY 
JACOB ABBOTT 

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Volume III. 

ILLUSTRATED 



1906 
THE ST. HUBERT GUILD 

NEW YORK 



Workshops : Akron, Ohio 



HjBKARY of CONGRESS 
Two Cooies Received 

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COPY B. 



COPYRIGHT, 1906, 
BY 

The St. Hubert Guild 



PREFACE 



"I am Cyrus the King." Such is the proud dec- 
laration that, after the lapse of twenty-five centuries, 
from the tomb of the mighty Persian still commands 
our homage to its imperial inmate. Out of the realm 
of myth and fable his imposing figure emerges, but 
history records enough of him to allow his title of 
"the Great" to stand unquestioned. Croesus, with 
all his treasure, went down before him, and "Great 
Babylon " could not withstand his arms. Great as 
were his achievements as a warrior and a prince, 
history, though encumbered with the deeds of ages, 
still finds space to recite his nobility of soul. 



(ix) 






TABLE OF CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. HERODOTUS AND XENOPHON 15 

II. THE BIRTH OF CYRUS 37 

III. THE VISIT TO MEDIA 63 

IV. CRCESUS 9° 

V. ACCESSION OF CYRUS TO THE THRONE . . .HO 

VI. THE ORACLES I2 6 

VII. THE CONQUEST OF LYDIA 1 44 

VIII. THE CONQUEST OF BABYLON . . . . • ■ • 1 63 

IX. THE RESTORATION OF THE JEWS l8l 

X. THE STORY OF PANTHEA x 9^ 

XI. CONVERSATIONS 2J 8 

XII. THE DEATH OF CYRUS . ... . ' . • • • 234 



(xi) 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Cyrus 

Page 



CYRUS PARDONED BY HIS FATHER ... Frontispiece 

CYRUS AT THE BATTLE OF TRYMBRA 2CK) 

CAMBYSES KILLING THE EGYPTIAN APIS 243 



(xiii) 



CYRUS THE GREAT 



CHAPTER I. 

Herodotus and Xenophon. 

The Persian monarchy.— Singular principle of human nature. — Grandeur of 
the Persian monarchy. — Its origin. — The republics of Greece. — Written 
characters Greek and Persian. — Preservation of the Greek language. — 
Herodotus and Xenophon. — Birth of Herodotus. — Education of the 
Greeks. — How public affairs were discussed. — literary entertainments. 
— Herodotus's early love of knowledge. — Intercourse of nations. — Mili- 
tary expeditions. — Plan of Herodotus's tour. — Herodotus visits Egypt. — 
Libya and the Straits of Gibraltar. — Route of Herodotus in Asia. — His 
return to Greece. — Doubts as to the extent of Herodotus's tour. — His 
history "adorned." — Herodotus's credibility questioned. — Sources of 
bias. — Samos. — Patmos. — The Olympiads. — Herodotus at Olympia. — His 
history received with applause. — Herodotus at Athens. — His literary 
fame. — Birth of Xenophon. — Cyrus the Younger. — Ambition of Cyrus. — 
He attempts to assassinate his brother. — Rebellion of Cyrus. — The 
Greek auxiliaries. — Artaxerxes assembles his army. — The battle. — Cy- 
rus slain.— Murder of the Greek generals. — Critical situation of the 
Greeks. — Xenophon's proposal. — Retreat of the Ten Thousand. — Xeno- 
phon's retirement.— Xenophon's writings.— Credibility of Herodotus 
and Xenophon. — Importance of the story. — Object of this work. 

Cyrus was the founder of the ancient Persian em- 
pire — a monarchy, perhaps, the most wealthy 
and magnificent which the world has ever 
seen. Of that strange and incomprehensible principle 
of human nature, under the influence of which vast 

('5) 



16 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 550 

masses of men, notwithstanding the universal instinct 
of aversion to control, combine, under certain circum- 
stances, by millions and millions, to maintain, for 
many successive centuries, the representatives of some 
one great family in a condition of exalted, and abso- 
lute, and utterly irresponsible ascendency over them- 
selves, while they toil for them, watch over them, 
submit to endless and most humiliating privations in 
their behalf, and commit, if commanded to do so, the 
most inexcusable and atrocious crimes to sustain the 
demigods they have thus made in their lofty estate, 
we have, in the case of this Persian monarchy, one 
of the most extraordinary exhibitions. 

The Persian monarchy appears, in fact, even as 
we look back upon it from this remote distance both 
of space and of time, as a very vast wave of human 
power and grandeur. It swelled up among the pop- 
ulations of Asia, between the Persian Gulf and the 
Caspian Sea, about five hundred years before Christ, 
and rolled on in undiminished magnitude and glory 
for many centuries. It bore upon its crest the royal 
line of Astyages and his successors. Cyrus was, 
however, the first of the princes whom it held up 
conspicuously to the admiration of the world, and he 
rode so gracefully and gallantly on the lofty crest 
that mankind have given him the credit of raising 
and sustaining the magnificent billow on which he 
was borne. How far we are to consider him as 



B.C. 550] HERODOTUS— XENOPHON 17 

founding the monarchy, or the monarchy as raising 
and illustrating him, will appear more fully in the 
course of this narrative. 

Contemporaneous with this Persian monarchy in 
the East, there flourished in the West the small but 
very efficient and vigorous republics of Greece. The 
Greeks had a written character for their language 
which could be easily and rapidly executed, while 
the ordinary language of the Persians was scarcely 
written at all. There was, it is true, in this latter 
nation, a certain learned character, which was used 
by the priests for their mystic records, and also for 
certain sacred books which constituted the only na- 
tional archives. It was, however, only slowly and 
with difficulty that this character could be penned, 
and, when penned, it was unintelligible to the great 
mass of the population. For this reason, among 
others, the Greeks wrote narratives of the great events 
which occurred in their day, which narratives they 
so embellished and adorned by the picturesque lights 
and shades in which their genius enabled them to 
present the scenes and characters described as to 
make them universally admired, while the surrounding 
nations produced nothing but formal governmental 
records, not worth to the community at large the 
toil and labor necessary to decipher them and make 
them intelligible. Thus the Greek writers became the 
historians, not only of their own republics, but also 

M. ofH.— 11— 2 



1 8 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 550 

of all the nations around them; and with such admi- 
rable genius and power did they fulfill this function, 
that, while the records of all other nations cotempo- 
rary with them have been almost entirely neglected 
and forgotten, the language of the Greeks has been 
preserved among mankind, with infinite labor and 
toil, by successive generations of scholars, in every 
civilized nation, for two thousand years, solely in 
order that men may continue to read these tales. 

Two Greek historians have given us a narrative of 
the events connected with the life of Cyrus — Herod- 
otus and Xenophon. These writers disagree very ma- 
terially in the statements which they make, and mod- 
ern readers are divided in opinion on the question 
which to believe. In order to present this question 
fairly to the minds of our readers, we must com- 
mence this volume with some account of these two 
authorities, whose guidance, conflicting as it is, fur- 
nishes all the light which we have to follow. 

Herodotus was a philosopher and scholar. Xen- 
ophon was a great general. The one spent his life 
in solitary study, or in visiting various countries 
in the pursuit of knowledge; the other distinguished 
himself in the command of armies, and in distant 
military expeditions, which he conducted with great 
energy and skill. They were both, by birth, men of 
wealth and high station, so that they occupied, from 
the beginning, conspicuous positions in society; and 



B.C. 484] HERODOTUS— XENOPHON 19 

as they were both energetic and enterprising in char- 
acter, they were led, each, to a very romantic and 
adventurous career, the one in his travels, the other 
in his campaigns, so that their personal history and 
their exploits attracted great attention even while 
they lived. 

Herodotus was born in the year 484 before Christ, 
which was about fifty years after the death of the 
Cyrus whose history forms the subject of this vol- 
ume. He was born in the Grecian state of Caria, in 
Asia Minor, and in the city of Halicarnassus. Caria, 
as may be seen from the map at the commencement 
of this volume, was in the southwestern part of Asia 
Minor, near the shores of the /Egean Sea. Herodotus 
became a student at a very early age. It was the 
custom in Greece, at that time, to give to young 
men of his rank a good intellectual education. In 
other nations, the training of the young men, in 
wealthy and powerful families, was confined almost 
exclusively to the use of arms, to horsemanship, to 
athletic feats, and other such accomplishments as 
would give them a manly and graceful personal bear- 
ing, and enable them to excel in the various friendly 
contests of the public games, as well as prepare 
them to maintain their ground against their enemies 
in personal combats on the field of battle. The 
Greeks, without neglecting these things, taught their 
young men also to read and to write, explained to 



i 

20 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 450 

them the structure and the philosophy of language, 
and trained them to the study of the poets, the ora- 
tors, and the historians which their country had pro- 
duced. Thus a general taste for intellectual pursuits 
and pleasures was diffused throughout the commu- 
nity. Public affairs were discussed, before large audi- 
ences assembled for the purpose, by orators who felt 
a great pride and pleasure in the exercise of the 
power which they had acquired of persuading, con- 
vincing, or exciting the mighty masses that listened 
to them; and at the great public celebrations which 
were customary in those days, in addition to the 
wrestlings, the races, the games, and the military 
spectacles, there were certain literary entertainments 
provided, which constituted an essential part of the 
public pleasures. Tragedies were acted, poems recited, 
odes and lyrics sung, and narratives of martial enter- 
prises and exploits, and geographical and historical 
descriptions of neighboring nations, were read to vast 
throngs of listeners, who, having been accustomed 
from infancy to witness such performances, and to 
hear them applauded, had learned to appreciate and 
enjoy them. Of course, these literary exhibitions 
would make impressions, more or less strong, on 
different minds, as the mental temperaments and 
characters of individuals varied. They seem to have 
exerted a very powerful influence on the mind of 
Herodotus in his early years. He was inspired, when 



B.C. 450] HERODOTUS—- XENOPHON 21 

very young, with a great zeal, and ardor for the at- 
tainment of knowledge; and as he advanced toward 
maturity, he began to be ambitious of making new 
discoveries, with a view of communicating to his 
countrymen, in these great public assemblies, what he 
should thus acquire. Accordingly, as soon as he ar- 
rived at a suitable age, he resolved to set out upon a 
tour into foreign countries, and to bring back a report 
of what he should see and hear. 

The intercourse of nations was, in those days, 
mainly carried on over the waters of the Mediter- 
ranean. Sea; and in times of peace, almost the only 
mode of communication was by the ships and the 
caravans of the merchants who traded from country 
to country, both by sea and on the land. In fact, the 
knowledge which one country possessed of the geog- 
raphy and the manners and customs of another, was 
almost wholly confined to the reports which these 
merchants circulated. When military expeditions in- 
vaded a territory, the commanders, or the writers who 
accompanied them, often wrote descriptions of the 
scenes which they witnessed in their campaigns, and 
described briefly the countries through which they 
passed. These cases were, however, comparatively 
rare; and yet, when they occurred, they furnished ac- 
counts better authenticated, and more to be relied 
upon, and expressed, moreover, in a more systematic 
and regular form, than the reports of the merchants, 



22 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 450 

though the information which was derived from both 
these sources combined was very insufficient, and 
tended to excite more curiosity than it gratified. He- 
rodotus, therefore, conceived that, in thoroughly ex- 
ploring the countries on the shores of the Mediter- 
ranean and in the interior of Asia, examining their 
geographical position, inquiring into their history, their 
institutions, their manners, customs, and laws, and 
writing the results for the entertainment and instruc- 
tion of his countrymen, he had an ample field before 
him for the exercise of all his powers. 

He went first to Egypt. Egypt had been until 
that time, closely shut up from the rest of mankind 
by the jealousy and watchfulness of the government. 
But now, on account of some recent political changes, 
which will be hereafter more particularly alluded to, 
the way was opened for travelers from other countries 
to come in. Herodotus was the first to avail himself 
of this opportunity. He spent some time in the 
country, and made himself minutely acquainted with 
its history, its antiquities, its political and social con- 
dition at the time of his visit, and with all the other 
points in respect to which he supposed that his coun- 
trymen would wish to be informed. He took copious 
notes of all that he saw. From Egypt he went west- 
ward into Libya, and thence he traveled slowly along 
the whole southern shore of the Mediterranean Sea 
as far as to the Straits of Gibraltar, noting, with great 



B.C. 450] HERODOTUS— XENOPHON 23 

care, every thing which presented itself to his own 
personal observation, and availing himself of every 
possible source of information in respect to all other 
points of importance for the object which he had in 
view. 

The Straits of Gibraltar were the ends of the earth 
toward the westward in those ancient days, and our 
traveler accordingly, after reaching them, returned 
again to the eastward. He visited Tyre, and the 
cities of Phoenicia, on the eastern coast of the Medi- 
terranean Sea, and thence went still further eastward 
to Assyria and Babylon. It was here that he obtained 
the materials for what he has written in respect to 
the Medes and Persians, and to the history of Cyrus. 
After spending some time in these countries, he went 
on by land still further to the eastward, into the heart 
of Asia. The country of Scythia was considered as 
at "the end of the earth" in this direction. Herodotus 
penetrated for some distance into the almost trackless 
wilds of this remote land, until he found that he had 
gone as far from the great center of light and power 
on the shores of the /Egean Sea as he could expect 
the curiosity of his countrymen to follow him. He 
passed thence round toward the north, and came 
down through the countries north of the Danube into 
Greece, by way of the Epirus and Macedon. To 
make such a journey as this was, in fact, in those 
days, almost to explore the whole known world. 



24 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 450 

It ought, however, here to be stated, that many 
modern scholars, who have examined, with great 
care, the accounts which Herodotus has given of 
what he saw and heard in his wanderings, doubt 
very seriously whether his journeys were really as ex- 
tended as he pretends. As his object was to read 
what he was intending to write at great public as- 
semblies in Greece, he was, of course, under every 
possible inducement to make his narrative as interest- 
ing as possible, and not to detract at all from what- 
ever there might be extraordinary either in the extent 
of his wanderings or in the wonderfulness of the ob- 
jects and scenes which he saw, or in the romantic 
nature of the adventures which he met with in his 
protracted tour. Cicero, in lauding him as a writer, 
says that he was the first who evinced the power to 
adorn a historical narrative. Between adorning and 
embellishing, the line is not to be very distinctly 
marked; and Herodotus has often been accused of 
having drawn more from his fancy than from any 
other source, in respect to a large portion of what he 
relates and describes. Some do not believe that he 
ever even entered half the countries which he pro- 
fesses to have thoroughly explored, while others find, 
in the minuteness of his specifications, something like 
conclusive proof that he related only what he actually 
saw. In a word, the question of his credibility has 
been discussed by successive generations of scholars 



HERODOTUS— XENOPHON 25 

ever since his day, and strong parties have been 
formed who have gone to extremes in the opinions 
they have taken; so that, while some confer upon 
him the title of the father of history, others say it 
would be more in accordance with his merits to call 
him the father of lies. In controversies like this, and, 
in fact, in all controversies, it is more agreeable to 
the mass of mankind to take sides strongly with one 
party or the other, and either to believe or disbelieve 
one or the other fully and cordially. There is a class 
of minds, however, more calm and better balanced 
than the rest, who can deny themselves this pleasure, 
and who see that often, in the most bitter and de- 
cided controversies, the truth lies between. By this 
class of minds it has been generally supposed that the 
narratives of Herodotus are substantially true, though 
in many cases highly colored and embellished, or, as 
Cicero called it, adorned, as, in fact, they inevitably 
must have been under the circumstances in which 
they were written. 

We can not follow minutely the circumstances of 
the subsequent life of Herodotus. He became in- 
volved in some political disturbances and difficulties 
in his native state after his return, in consequence of 
which he retired, partly a fugitive and partly an exile, 
to the island of Samos, which is at a little distance 
from Caria, and not far from the shore. Here he 
lived for some time in seclusion, occupied in writing 



26 CYRUS THE GREAT 

out his history. He divided it into nine books, to 
which, respectively, the names of the nine Muses 
were afterward given, to designate them. The island 
of Samos, where this great literary work was per- 
formed, is very near to Patmos, where, a few hun- 
dred years later, the Evangelist John, in a similar re- 
tirement, and in the use of the same language and 
character, wrote the Book of Revelation. 

When a few of the first books of his history were 
completed, Herodotus went with the manuscript to 
Olympia, at the great celebration of the 8ist Olym- 
piad. The Olympiads were periods recurring at in- 
tervals of about four years. By means of them the 
Greeks reckoned their time. The Olympiads were 
celebrated as they occurred, with games, shows, 
spectacles, and parades, which were conducted on so 
magnificent a scale that vast crowds were accustomed 
to assemble from every part of Greece to witness and 
join in them. They were held at Olympia, a city on 
the western side of Greece. Nothing now remains to 
mark the spot but some acres of confused and un- 
intelligible ruins. 

The personal fame of Herodotus and of his travels 
had preceded him, and when he arrived at Olympia 
he found the curiosity and eagerness of the people to 
listen to his narratives extreme. He read copious ex- 
tracts from his accounts, so far as he had written 
them, to the vast assemblies which convened to hear 



HERODOTUS— XENOPHON 27 

him, and they were received with unbounded ap- 
plause; and inasmuch as these assemblies comprised 
nearly all the statesmen, the generals, the philoso- 
phers, and the scholars of Greece, applause expressed 
by them became at once universal renown. Herod- 
otus was greatly gratified at the interest which his 
countrymen took in his narratives, and he determined 
thenceforth to devote his time assiduously to the 
continuation and completion of his work. 

It was twelve years, however, before his plan was 
finally accomplished. He then repaired to Athens, at 
the time of a grand festive celebration which was 
held in that city, and there he appeared in public 
again, and read extended portions of the additional 
books that he had written. The admiration and ap- 
plause which his work now elicited was even greater 
than before. In deciding upon the passages to be read, 
Herodotus selected such as would be most likely to 
excite the interest of his Grecian hearers, and many 
of them were glowing accounts of Grecian exploits 
in former wars which had been waged in the coun- 
tries which he had visited. To expect that, under 
such circumstances, Herodotus should have made his 
history wholly impartial, would be to suppose the 
historian not human. 

The Athenians were greatly pleased with the nar- 
ratives which Herodotus thus read to them of their 
own and" of their ancestors' exploits. They consid- 



28 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 450 

ered him a national benefactor for having made such 
a record of their deeds, and, in addition to the un- 
bounded applause which they bestowed upon him, 
they made him a public grant of a large sum of 
money. During the remainder of his life Herodotus 
continued to enjoy the high degree of literary renown 
which his writings had acquired for him — a renown 
which has since been extended and increased, rather 
than diminished, by the lapse of time. 

As for Xenophon, the other great historian of Cyrus, 
it has already been said that he was a military com- 
mander, and his life was accordingly spent in a very 
different manner from that of his great competitor for 
historic fame. He was born at Athens, about thirty 
years after the birth of Herodotus, so that he was but 
a child while Herodotus was in the midst of his career. 
When he was about twenty-two years of age, he 
joined a celebrated military expedition which was 
formed in Greece, for the purpose of proceeding to 
Asia Minor to enter into the service of the governor 
of that country. The name of this governor was 
Cyrus; and to distinguish him from Cyrus the Great, 
whose history is to form the subject of this volume, 
and who lived about one hundred and fifty years 
before him, he is commonly called Cyrus the 
Younger. 

This expedition was headed by a Grecian general 
named Clearchus. The soldiers and the subordinate 



B.C. 401] HERODOTUS— XENOPHON 29 

officers of the expedition did not know for what spe- 
cial service it was designed, as Cyrus had a treason- 
able and guilty object in view, and he kept it accord- 
ingly concealed, even from the agents who were to 
aid him in the execution of it. His plan was to make 
war upon and dethrone his brother Artaxerxes, then 
King of Persia, and consequently his sovereign. Cy- 
rus was a very young man, but he was a man of 
a very energetic and accomplished character, and of 
unbounded ambition. When his father died, it was 
arranged that Artaxerxes, the older son, should suc- 
ceed him. Cyrus was extremely unwilling to submit 
to this supremacy of his brother. His mother was 
an artful and unprincipled woman, and Cyrus, being 
the youngest of her children, was her favorite. She 
encouraged him in his ambitious designs; and so 
desperate was Cyrus himself in his determination to 
accomplish them, that it is said he attempted to as- 
sassinate his brother on the day of his coronation. 
His attempt was discovered, and it failed. His brother, 
however, instead of punishing him for the treason, 
had the generosity to pardon him, and sent him to 
his government in Asia Minor. Cyrus immediately 
turned all his thoughts to the plan of raising an army 
and making war upon his brother, in order to gain 
forcible possession of his throne. That he might 
have a plausible pretext for making the necessary 
military preparations, he pretended to have a quarrel 



30 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 401 

with one of his neighbors, and wrote, hypocritically, 
many letters to the king, affecting solicitude for his 
safety, and asking aid. The king was thus deceived, 
and made no preparations to resist the force which 
Cyrus was assembling, not having the remotest sus- 
picion that its destiny was Babylon. 

The auxiliary army which came from Greece, to 
enter into Cyrus's service under these circumstances, 
consisted of about thirteen thousand men. He had, 
it was said, a hundred thousand men besides; but so 
celebrated were the Greeks in those days for their 
courage, their discipline, their powers of endurance, 
and their indomitable tenacity and energy, that Cyrus 
very properly considered this corps as the flower of 
his army. Xenophon was one of the younger Gre- 
cian generals. The army crossed the Hellespont, and 
entered Asia Minor, and, passing across the country, 
reached at last the famous pass of Cilicia, in the 
southwestern part of the country-^- a narrow defile 
between the mountains and the sea, which opens the 
only passage in that quarter toward the Persian re- 
gions beyond. Here the suspicions which the Greeks 
had been for some time inclined to feel, that they 
were going to make war upon the Persian monarch 
himself, were confirmed, and they refused to proceed. 
Their unwillingness, however, did not arise from any 
compunctions of conscience about the guilt of trea- 
son, or the wickedness of helping an ungrateful and 



B.C. 401] HERODOTUS— XENOPHON 31 

unprincipled wretch, whose forfeited life had once 
been given to him by his brother, in making war 
upon and destroying his benefactor. 

Soldiers have never, in any age of the world, any 
thing to do with compunctions of conscience in re- 
spect to the work which their commanders give 
them to perform. The Greeks were perfectly willing 
to serve in this or in any other undertaking; but, 
since it was rebellion and treason that was asked of 
them, they considered it as specially hazardous, and 
so they concluded that they were entitled to extra 
pay. Cyrus made no objection to this demand; an 
arrangement was made accordingly, and the army 
went on. 

Artaxerxes assembled suddenly the whole force of 
his empire on the plains of Babylon — an immense 
army, consisting, it is said, of over a million of men. 
Such vast forces occupy, necessarily, a wide extent of 
country, even when drawn up in battle array. So 
great, in fact, was the extent occupied in this case, 
that the Greeks, who conquered all that part of the 
king's forces which was directly opposed to them, 
supposed, when night came, at the close of the day 
of battle, that Cyrus had been every where victorious; 
and they were only undeceived when, the next day, 
messengers came from the Persian camp to inform them 
that Cyrus's whole force, excepting themselves, was 
defeated and dispersed, and that Cyrus himself was 



32 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 401 

slain, and to summon them to surrender at once and 
unconditionally to the conquerors. 

The Greeks refused to surrender. They formed 
themselves immediately into a compact and solid 
body, fortified themselves as well as they could in 
their position, and prepared for a desperate defense. 
There were about ten thousand of them left, and the 
Persians seem to have considered them too formidable 
to be attacked. The Persians entered into negotia- 
tions with them, offering them certain terms on which 
they would be allowed to return peaceably into 
Greece. These negotiations were protracted from day 
to day for two or three weeks, the Persians treach- 
erously using toward them a friendly tone, and evinc- 
ing a disposition to treat them in a liberal and gen- 
erous manner. This threw the Greeks off their guard, 
and finally the Persians contrived to get Clearchus 
and the leading Greek generals into their power at a 
feast, and then they seized and murdered them, or, 
as they would perhaps term it, executed them as 
rebels and traitors. When this was reported in the 
Grecian camp, the whole army was thrown at first 
into the utmost consternation. They found them- 
selves two thousand miles from home, in the heart of 
a hostile country, with an enemy nearly a hundred 
times their own number close upon them, while they 
themselves were without provisions, without horses, 
without money; and there were deep rivers, and rug- 



B.C. 402] HERODOTUS— XENOPHON 33 

ged mountains, and every other possible physical ob- 
stacle to be surmounted, before they could reach 
their own frontiers. If they surrendered to their ene- 
mies, a hopeless and most miserable slavery was their 
inevitable doom. 

Under these circumstances, Xenophon, according 
to his own story, called together the surviving offi- 
cers in the camp, urged them not to despair, and 
recommended that immediate measures should be taken 
for commencing a march toward Greece. He pro- 
posed that they should elect commanders to take the 
places of those who had been killed, -and that, under 
their new organization, they should immediately set 
out on their return. These plans were adopted. He 
himself was chosen as the commanding general, and 
under his guidance the whole force was conducted 
safely through the countless difficulties and dangers 
which beset their way, though they had to defend 
themselves, at every step of their progress, from an 
enemy so vastly more numerous than they, and which 
was hanging on their flanks and on their rear, and 
making the most incessant efforts to surround and 
capture them. This retreat occupied two hundred and 
fifteen days. It has always been considered as one of 
the greatest military achievements that has ever been 
performed. It is called in history the Retreat of the 
Ten Thousand. Xenophon acquired by it a double 
immortality. He led the army, and thus attained to 

M. ofH.— 11— 3 



34 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 402 

a military renown which will never fade; and he 
afterward wrote a narrative of the exploit, which has 
given him an equally extended and permanent literary 
fame. 

Some time after this, Xenophon returned again to 
Asia as a military commander, and distinguished him- 
self in other campaigns. He acquired a large fortune, 
too, in these wars, and at length retired to a villa, 
which he built and adorned magnificently, in the 
neighborhood of Olympia, where Herodotus had ac- 
quired so extended a fame by reading his histories. 
It was probably, in some degree, through the influ- 
ence of the success which had attended the labors of 
Herodotus in this field, that Xenophon was induced 
to enter it. He devoted the later years of his life to 
writing various historical memoirs, the two most im- 
portant of which that have come down to modern 
times are, first, the narrative of his own expedition, 
under Cyrus the Younger, and, secondly, a sort of 
romance or tale founded on the history of Cyrus the 
Great. This last is called the Cyropsedia; and it is 
from this work, and from the history written by 
Herodotus, that nearly all our knowledge of the great 
Persian monarch is derived. 

The question how far the stories which Herodo- 
tus and Xenophon have told us in relating the history 
of the great Persian king are true, is of less impor- 



HERODOTUS— XENOPHON 3 $ 

tance than one would at first imagine; for the case is 
one of those numerous instances in which the narra- 
tive itself, which genius has written, has had far 
greater influence on mankind than the events them- 
selves exerted which the narrative professes to record. 
It is now far more important for us to know what 
the story is which has for eighteen hundred years 
been read and listened to by every generation of men, 
than what the actual events were in which the tale 
thus told had its origin. This consideration applies 
very extensively to history, and especially to ancient 
history. The events themselves have long since ceased 
to be of any great interest or importance to readers 
of the present day; but the accounts, whether they 
are fictitious or real, partial or impartial, honestly true 
or embellished and colored, since they have been so 
widely circulated in every age and in every nation, 
and have impressed themselves so universally and so 
permanently in the mind and memory of the whole 
human race, and have penetrated into and colored the 
literature of every civilized people, it becomes now 
necessary that every well-informed man should under- 
stand. In a word, the real Cyrus is now a far less 
important personage to mankind than the Cyrus of 
Herodotus and Xenophon, and it is, accordingly, their 
story which the author proposes to relate in this 
volume. The reader will understand, therefore, that 



36 CYRUS THE GREAT 

the end and aim of the work is not to guarantee an 
exact and certain account of Cyrus as he actually 
lived and acted, but only to give a true and faithful 
summary of the story which for the last two thou- 
sand years has been in circulation respecting him 
among mankind. 




CHAPTER II. 
The Birth of Cyrus. 

The three Asiatic empires.— Marriage of Cambyses.— Story of Mandane.— 
Dream of Astyages.— Astyages's second dream.— Its interpretation.— 
Birth of Cyrus.— Astyages determines to destroy him.— Harpagus.— The 
king's command to him.— Distress of Harpagus.— His consultation with 
his wife.— The herdsman.— He conveys the child to his hut.— Entreaties 
of the herdsman's wife to save the child's life.— Spaco substitutes her 
dead child for Cyrus.— The artifice successful.— The body buried.— Re- 
morse of Astyages.— Boyhood of Cyrus.— Cyrus a king among the boys.— 
A quarrel. — Cyrus summoned into the presence of Astyages. — Cyrus's 
defense. — Astonishment of Astyages. — The discovery. — Mingled feel- 
ings of Astyages. — Inhuman monsters. — Astyages determines to punish 
Harpagus. — Interview between Astyages and Harpagus. — Dissimulation 
of Astyages. — He proposes an entertainment. — Astyages invites Har- 
pagus to a giand entertainment. — Horrible revenge. — Action of Har- 
pagus.— Astyages becomes uneasy.— The magi again consulted.— Advice 
of the magi.— Astyages adopts it.— Cyrus sets out for Persia.— His par- 
ents' joy.— I,ife at Cambyses's court. — Instruction of the young men. — 
Cyrus a judge.— His decision in that capacity.— Cyrus punished .— Manly 
exercises.— Hunting excursions.— Personal appearance of Cyrus.— Dis- 
position and character of Cyrus. — A universal favorite. 

There are records coming down to us from 
the very earliest times of three several king- 
doms situated in the heart of Asia — Assyria, 
Media, and Persia, the two latter of which, at the 
period when they first emerge indistinctly into view, 
were more or less connected with and dependent 
upon the former. Astyages was the King of Media; 
Cambyses was the name of the ruling prince or mag- 

(37) 



38 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 599 

istrate of Persia. Cambyses married Mandane, the 
daughter of Astyages, and Cyrus was their son. In 
recounting the circumstances of his birth Herodotus 
relates, with all seriousness, the following very extraor- 
dinary story: 

While Mandane was a maiden, living at her 
father's palace and home in Media, Astyages awoke 
one morning terrified by a dream. He had dreamed 
of a great inundation, which overwhelmed and des- 
troyed his capital, and submerged a large part of his 
kingdom. The great rivers of that country were 
liable to very destructive floods, and there would have 
been nothing extraordinary or alarming in the king's 
imagination being haunted, during his sleep, by the 
image of such a calamity, were it not that, in this 
case, the deluge of water which produced such dis- 
astrous results seemed to be, in some mysterious 
way, connected with his daughter, so that the dream 
appeared to portend some great calamity which was 
to originate in her. He thought it perhaps indicated 
that after her marriage she should have, a son who 
would rebel against him and seize the supreme power, 
thus overwhelming his kingdom as the inundation 
had done which he had seen in his dream. 

To guard against this imagined danger, Astyages 
determined that his daughter should not be married 
in Media, but that she should be provided with a 
husband in some foreign land, so as to be taken 



B.C. 599] BIRTH OF CYRUS 39 

away from Media altogether. He finally selected 
Cambyses, the King of Persia, for her husband. Per- 
sia was at that time a comparatively small and cir- 
cumscribed dominion, and Cambyses, though he 
seems to have been the supreme ruler of it, was 
very far beneath Astyages in rank and power. The 
distance between the two countries was considerable, 
and the institutions and customs of the people of Per- 
sia were simple and rude, little likely to awaken or 
encourage in the minds of their princes any treason- 
able or ambitious designs. Astyages thought, there- 
fore, that in sending Mandane there to be the wife of 
the king, he had taken effectual precautions to guard 
against the danger portended by his dream. 

Mandane was accordingly married, and conducted 
by her husband to her new home. About a year 
afterward her father had another dream. He dreamed 
that a vine proceeded from his daughter, and, grow- 
ing rapidly and luxuriantly while he was regarding 
it, extended itself over the whole land. Now the 
vine being a symbol of beneficence and plenty, 
Astyages might have considered this vision as an 
omen of good; still, as it was good which was to be 
derived in some way from his daughter, it naturally 
awakened his fears anew that he was doomed to find 
a rival and competitor for the possession of his king- 
dom in Mandane's son and heir. He called together 
his soothsayers, related his dream to them, and asked 



4 o CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 599 

for their interpretation. They decided that it meant 
that Mandane would have a son who would one day 
become a king. 

Astyages was now seriously alarmed, and he sent 
for Mandane to come home, ostensibly because he 
wished her to pay a visit to her father and to her 
native land, but really for the purpose of having her 
in his power, that he might destroy her child so soon 
as one should be born. 

Mandane came to Media, and was established 
by her father in a residence near his palace, and such 
officers and domestics were put in charge of her house- 
hold as Astyages could rely upon to do whatever he 
should command. Things being thus arranged, a 
few months passed away, and then Mandane's child 
was born. 

Immediately on hearing of the event, Astyages 
sent for a certain officer of his court, an unscrupu- 
lous and hardened man, who possessed, as he sup- 
posed, enough of depraved and reckless resolution for 
the commission of any crime, and addressed him as 
follows : 

"I have sent for you, Harpagus, to commit to 
your charge a business of very great importance. I 
confide fully in your principles of obedience and fidel- 
ity, and depend upon your doing, yourself, with your 
own hands, the work that I require. If you fail to 



B.C. 599] BIRTH OF CYRUS 41 

do it, or if you attempt to evade it by putting it off 
upon others, you will suffer severely. I wish you to 
take Mandane's child to your own house and put 
him to death. You may accomplish the object in any 
mode you please, and you may arrange the circum- 
stances of the burial of the body, or the disposal of it 
in any other way, as you think best; the essential thing 
is, that you see to it, yourself, that the child is 
killed." 

Harpagus replied that whatever the king might 
command it was his duty to do, and that, as his 
master had never hitherto had occasion to censure 
his conduct, he should not find him wanting now. 
Harpagus then went to receive the infant. The at- 
tendants of Mandane had been ordered to deliver it 
to him. Not at all suspecting the object for which 
the child was thus taken away, but naturally suppos- 
ing, on the other hand, that it was for the purpose 
of some visit, they arrayed their unconscious charge 
in the most highly-wrought and costly of the robes 
which Mandane, his mother, had for many months 
been interested in preparing for him, and then gave 
him up to the custody of Harpagus, expecting, doubt- 
less, that he would be very speedily returned to their 
care. 

Although Harpagus had expressed a ready willing- 
ness to obey the cruel behest of the king at the time 



42 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 599 

of receiving it, he manifested, as soon as he received 
the child, an extreme degree of anxiety and distress. 
He immediately sent for a herdsman named Mitridates 
to come to him. In the mean time, he took the 
child home to his house, and in a very excited and 
agitated manner related to his wife what had passed. 
He laid the child down in the apartment, leaving it 
neglected and alone, while he conversed with his 
wife in a hurried and anxious manner in respect to 
the dreadful situation in which he found himself 
placed. She asked him what he intended to do. He 
replied that he certainly should not, himself, destroy 
the child. "It is the son of Mandane," said he. 
"She is the king's daughter. If the king should die, 
Mandane would succeed him, and then what terrible 
danger would impend over me if she should know 
me to have been the slayer of her son!" Harpagus 
said, moreover, that he did not dare absolutely to 
disobey the orders of the king so far as to save the 
child's life, and that he had sent for a herdsman, 
whose pastures extended to wild and desolate forests 
and mountains — the gloomy haunts of wild beasts 
and birds of prey — intending to give the child to 
him, with orders to carry it into those solitudes and 
abandon it there. His name was Mitridates. 

While they were speaking this herdsman came in. 
He found Harpagus and his wife talking thus together, 
with countenances expressive of anxiety and distress, 



B.C. 599] BIRTH OF CYRUS 43 

while the child, uneasy under the confinement and 
inconvenience of its splendid dress, and terrified at 
the strangeness of the scene and the circumstances 
around it, and perhaps, moreover, experiencing some 
dawning and embryo emotions of resentment at be- 
ing laid down in neglect, cried aloud and incessantly. 
Harpagus gave the astonished herdsman his charge. 
He, afraid, as Harpagus had been in the presence of 
Astyages, to evince any hesitation in respect to obey- 
ing the orders of his superior, whatever they might 
be, took up the child and bore it away. 

He carried it to his hut. It so happened that his 
wife, whose name was Spaco, had at that very time 
a new-born child, but it was dead. Her dead son 
had, in fact, been born during the absence of Mitri- 
dates. He had been extremely unwilling to leave his 
home at such a time, but the summons of Harpagus 
must, he knew, be obeyed. His wife, too, not know- 
ing what could have occasioned so sudden and ur- 
gent a call, had to bear, all the day, a burden of anx- 
iety and solicitude in respect to her husband, in ad- 
dition to her disappointment and grief at the loss of her 
child. Her anxiety and grief was changed for a little 
time into astonishment and curiosity at seeing the 
beautiful babe, so magnificently dressed, which her 
husband brought to her, and at hearing his extraordi- 
nary story. 

He said that when he first entered the house of 



44 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 599 

Harpagus and saw the child lying there, and heard 
the directions which Harpagus gave him to carry it 
into the mountains and leave it to die, he supposed 
that the babe belonged to some of the domestics of 
the household, and that Harpagus wished to have it 
destroyed in order to be relieved of a burden. The 
richness, however, of the infant's dress, and the deep 
anxiety and sorrow which was indicated by the coun- 
tenances and by the conversation of Harpagus and 
his wife, and which seemed altogether too earnest to 
be excited by. the concern which they would proba- 
bly feel for any servant's offspring, appeared at the 
time, he said, inconsistent with that supposition, and 
perplexed and bewildered him. He said, moreover, 
that in the end, Harpagus had sent a man with him a 
part of the way when he left the house, and that this 
man had given him a full explanation of the case. 
The child was the son of Mandane, the daughter of 
the king, and he was to be destroyed by the orders 
of Astyages himself, for fear that at some future pe- 
riod he might attempt to usurp the throne. 

They who know any thing of the feelings of a 
mother under the circumstances in which Spaco was 
placed, can imagine with what emotions she received 
the little sufferer, now nearly exhausted by abstinence, 
fatigue, and fear, from her husband's hands, and the 
heartfelt pleasure with which she drew him to her 
bosom, to comfort and relieve him. In an hour she 



B.C. 599] BIRTH OF CYRUS 45 

was, as it were, herself his mother, and she began to 
plead hard with her husband for his life. 

Mitridates said that the child could not possibly be 
saved. Harpagus had been most earnest and positive 
in his orders, and he was coming himself to see that 
they had been executed. He would demand, un- 
doubtedly, to see the body of the child, to assure 
himself that it was actually dead. Spaco, instead of 
being convinced by her husband's reasoning, only be- 
came more and more earnest in her desires that the 
child might be saved. She rose from her couch and 
clasped her husband's knees, and begged him with 
the most earnest entreaties and with many tears to 
grant her request. Her husband was, however, inex- 
orable. He said that if he were to yield, and attempt 
to save the child from its doom, Harpagus would 
most certainly know that his orders had been dis- 
obeyed, and then their own lives would be forfeited, 
and the child itself sacrificed after all, in the end. 

The thought then occurred to Spaco that her own 
dead child might be substituted for the living one, 
and be exposed in the mountains in its stead. She 
proposed this plan, and, after much anxious doubt 
and hesitation, the herdsman consented to adopt it. 
They took off the splendid robes which adorned the 
living child, and put them on the corpse, each equally 
unconscious of the change. The little limbs of the 
son of Mandane were then more simply clothed in 



46 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 599 

the coarse and scanty covering which belonged to the 
new character which he was now to assume, and 
then the babe was restored to its place in Spaco's 
bosom. Mitridates placed his own dead child, com- 
pletely disguised as it was by the royal robes it 
wore, in the little basket or cradle in which the other 
had been brought, and, accompanied by an attendant, 
whom he was to leave in the forest to keep watch 
over the body, he went away to seek some wild and 
desolate solitude in which to leave it exposed. 

Three days passed away, during which the at- 
tendant whom the herdsman had left in the forest 
watched near the body to prevent its being devoured 
by wild beasts or birds of prey, and at the end of 
that time he brought it home. The herdsman then 
went to Harpagus to inform him that the child was 
dead, and, in proof that it was really so, he said that 
if Harpagus would come to his hut he could see the 
body. Harpagus sent some messenger in whom he 
could confide to make the observation. The herds- 
man exhibited the dead child to him, and he was 
satisfied. He reported the result of his mission to 
Harpagus, and Harpagus then ordered the body to be 
buried. The child of Mandane, whom we may call 
Cyrus, since that was the name which he subse- 
quently received, was brought up in the herdsman's 
hut, and passed every where for Spaco's child. 

Harpagus, after receiving the report of his mes- 



B.C. 589] BIRTH OF CYRUS 47 

senger, then informed Astyages that his orders had 
been executed, and that the child was dead. A trusty 
messenger, he said, whom he had sent for the pur- 
pose, had seen the body. Although the king had 
been so earnest to have the deed performed, he found 
that, after all, the knowledge that his orders had been 
obeyed gave him very little satisfaction. The fears, 
prompted by his selfishness and ambition, which had 
led him to commit the crime, gave place when it had 
been perpetrated, to remorse for his unnatural cruelty. 
Mandane mourned incessantly the death of her inno- 
cent babe, and loaded her father with reproaches for 
having destroyed it, which he found it very hard to 
bear. In the end, he repented bitterly of what he 
had done. 

The secret of the child's preservation remained 
concealed for about ten years. It was then discov- 
ered in the following manner: 

Cyrus, like Alexander, Csesar, William the Con- 
queror, Napoleon, and other commanding minds, who 
obtained a great ascendency over masses of men in 
their maturer years, evinced his dawning superiority 
at a very early period of his boyhood. He took the 
lead of his playmates in their sports, and made them 
submit to his regulations and decisions. Not only did 
the peasants' boys in the little hamlet where his re- 
puted father lived thus yield the precedence to him, 
but sometimes, when the sons of men of rank and 



48 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 589 

station came out from the city to join them in their 
plays, even then Cyrus was the acknowledged head. 
One day the son of an officer of King Astyages's court 
— his father's name was Artembaris — came out, with 
other boys from the city, to join these village boys 
in their sports. They were playing king. Cyrus was 
the king. Herodotus says that the other boys chose 
him as such. It was, however, probably such a sort 
of choice as that by which kings and emperors are 
made among men, a yielding more or less voluntary 
on the part of the subjects to the resolute and deter- 
mined energy with which the aspirant places himself 
upon the throne. 

During the progress of the play, a quarrel arose 
between Cyrus and the son of Artembaris. The lat- 
ter would not obey, and Cyrus beat him. He went 
home and complained bitterly to his father. The 
father went to Astyages to protest against such an 
indignity offered to his son by a peasant boy, and de- 
manded that the little tyrant should be punished. 
Probably far the larger portion of intelligent readers 
of history consider the whole story as a romance; 
but if we look upon it as in any respect true, we 
must conclude that the Median monarchy must have 
been, at that time, in a very rude and simple condi- 
tion indeed, to allow of the submission of such a 
question as this to the personal adjudication of the 
reigning king. 



B.C. 589] BIRTH OF CYRUS 49 

However this may be, Herodotus states that Art- 
embaris went to the palace of Astyages, taking his 
son with him, to offer proofs of the violence of which 
the herdsman's son had been guilty, by showing the 
contusions and bruises that had been produced by the 
blows. "Is this the treatment," he asked, indig- 
nantly, of the king, when he had completed his state- 
ment, "that my boy is to receive from the son of 
one of your slaves ? " 

Astyages seemed to be convinced that Artembaris 
had just cause to complain, and he sent for Mitridates 
and his son to come to him in the city. When they 
arrived, Cyrus advanced into the presence of the king 
with that courageous and manly bearing which ro- 
mance writers are so fond of ascribing to boys of 
noble birth, whatever may have been the circum- 
stances of their early training. Astyages was much 
struck with his appearance and air. He, however, 
sternly laid to his charge the accusation which Art- 
embaris had brought against him. Pointing to Artem- 
baris's son, all bruised and swollen as he was, he 
asked, "Is that the way that you, a mere herdsman's 
boy, dare to treat the son of one of my nobles ? " 

The little prince looked up into his stern judge's 
face with an undaunted expression of countenance, 
which, considering the circumstances of the case, and 
the smallness of the scale on which this embryo 
heroism was represented, was partly ludicrous and 

M. of H.— 11— 4 



50 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 589 

partly sublime. "My lord," said he, "what I have 
done I am able to justify. I did punish this boy, and 
I had a right to do so. I was king, and he was my 
subject, and he would not obey me. If you think 
that for this I deserve punishment myself, here I am; 
I am ready to suffer it." 

If Astyages had been struck with the appearance 
and manner of Cyrus at the commencement of the 
interview, his admiration was awakened far more 
strongly now, at hearing such words, uttered, too, in 
so exalted a tone, from such a child. He remained a 
long time silent. At last he told Artembaris and his 
son that they might retire. He would take the affair, 
he said, into his own hands, and dispose of it in a 
just and proper manner. Astyages then took the 
herdsman aside, and asked him, in an earnest tone, 
whose boy that was, and where he had obtained him. 

Mitridates was terrified. He replied, however, that 
the boy was his own son, and that his mother was 
still living at home, in the hut where they all resided. 
There seems to have been something, however, in his 
appearance and manner, while making these assertions, 
which led Astyages not to believe what he said. He 
was convinced that there was some unexplained 
mystery in respect to the origin of the boy, which 
the herdsman was willfully withholding. He assumed 
a displeased and threatening air, and ordered in his 
guards to take Mitridates into custody. The terrified 



B.C. 589] BIRTH OF CYRUS 51 

herdsman then said that he would explain all, and he 
accordingly related honestly the whole story. 

Astyages was greatly rejoiced to find that the 
child was alive. One would suppose it to be almost 
inconsistent with this feeling that he should be angry 
with Harpagus for not having destroyed it. It would 
seem, in fact, that Harpagus was not amenable to 
serious censure, in any view of the subject, for he 
had taken what he had a right to consider very ef- 
fectual measures for carrying the orders of the king 
into faithful execution. But Astyages seems to have 
been one of those inhuman monsters which the pos- 
session and long-continued exercise of despotic power 
have so often made, who take a calm, quiet, and de- 
liberate satisfaction in torturing to death any wretched 
victim whom they can have any pretext for destroy- 
ing, especially if they can invent some new means of 
torment to give a fresh piquancy to their pleasure. 
These monsters do not act from passion. Men are 
sometimes inclined to palliate great cruelties and 
crimes which are perpetrated under the influence of 
sudden anger, or from the terrible impulse of those 
impetuous and uncontrollable emotions of the human 
soul which, when once excited, seem to make men 
insane; but the crimes of a tyrant are not of this 
kind. They are the calm, deliberate, and sometimes 
carefully economized gratifications of a nature essen- 
tially malign. 



52 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 589 

When, therefore, Astyages learned that Harpagus 
had failed of literally obeying his command to des- 
troy, with his own hand, the infant which had been 
given him, although he was pleased with the conse- 
quences which had resulted from it, he immediately 
perceived that there was another pleasure besides 
that he was to derive from the transaction, namely, 
that of gratifying his own imperious and ungovern- 
able will by taking vengeance on him who had failed, 
even in so slight a degree, of fulfilling its dictates. 
In a word, he was glad that the child was saved, 
but he did not consider that that was any reason 
why he should not have the pleasure of punishing 
the man who saved him. 

Thus, far from being transported by any sudden 
and violent feeling of resentment to an inconsiderate 
act of revenge, Astyages began, calmly and coolly, 
and with a deliberate malignity more worthy of a 
demon than of a man, to consider how he could best 
accomplish the purpose he had in view. When, at 
length, his plan was formed, he sent for Harpagus to 
come to him. Harpagus came. The king began the 
conversation by asking Harpagus what method he 
had employed for destroying the child of Mandane, 
which he, the king, had delivered to him some years 
before. Harpagus replied by stating the exact truth. 
He said that, as soon as he had received the infant, 
he began immediately to consider by what means he 



B.C. 589] BIRTH OF CYRUS $3 

could effect its destruction without involving himself 
in the guilt of murder; that, finally, he had deter- 
mined upon employing the herdsman Mitridates to 
expose it in the forest till it should perish of hunger 
and cold, and, in order to be sure that the king's be- 
hest was fully obeyed, he charged the herdsman, he 
said, to keep strict watch nefir the child till it was 
dead, and then to bring home the body. He had 
then sent a confidential messenger from his own 
household to see the body and provide for its inter- 
ment. He solemnly assured the king, in conclusion, 
that this was the real truth, and that the child was 
actually destroyed in the manner he had described. 

The king then, with an appearance of great satis- 
faction and pleasure, informed Harpagus that the child 
had not been destroyed after all, and he related to 
him the circumstances of its having been exchanged 
for the dead child of Spaco, and brought up in the 
herdsman's hut. He informed him, too, of the singu- 
lar manner in which the fact that the infant had been 
preserved, and was still alive, had been discovered. 
He told Harpagus, moreover, that he was greatly re- 
joiced at this discovery. "After he was dead, as I 
supposed," said he, "I bitterly repented of having 
given orders to destroy him. I could not bear my 
daughter's grief, or the reproaches which she inces- 
santly uttered against me. But the child is alive, 
and all is well; and I am going to give a grand 



54 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 589 

entertainment as a festival of rejoicing on the occa- 
sion." 

Astyages then requested Harpagus to send his son, 
who was about thirteen years of age, to the palace, to 
be a companion to Cyrus, and, inviting him very spe- 
cially to come to the entertainment, he dismissed him 
with many marks of attention and honor. Harpagus 
went home, trembling at the thought of the imminent 
danger which he had incurred, and of the narrow escape 
by which he had been saved from it. He called his 
son, directed him to prepare himself to go to the 
king, and dismissed him with many charges in re- 
spect to his behavior, both toward the king and 
toward Cyrus. He related to his wife the conversa- 
tion which had taken place between himself and As- 
tyages, and she rejoiced with him in the apparently 
happy issue of an affair which might well have been 
expected to have been their ruin. 

The sequel of the story is too horrible to be told, 
and yet too essential to a right understanding of the 
influences and effects produced on human nature by 
the possession and exercise of despotic and irrespon- 
sible power to be omitted. Harpagus came to the 
festival. It was a grand entertainment. Harpagus 
was placed in a conspicuous position at the table. A 
great variety of dishes were brought in and set before 
the different guests, and were eaten without question. 
Toward the close of the feast, Astyages asked Har- 



B.C. 589] BIRTH OF CYRUS ss 

pagus what he thought of his fare. Harpagus, half 
terrified with some mysterious presentiment of danger, 
expressed himself well pleased with it. Astyages then 
told him there was plenty more of the same kind, 
and ordered the attendants to bring the basket in. 
They came accordingly, and uncovered a basket be- 
fore the wretched guest, which contained, as he saw 
when he looked into it, the head, and hands, and 
feet of his son. Astyages asked him to help himself 
to whatever part he liked! 

The most astonishing part of the story is yet to be 
told. It relates to the action of Harpagus in such an 
emergency. He looked as composed and placid as if 
nothing unusual had occurred. The king asked him 
if he knew what he had been eating. He said that 
he did; and that whatever was agreeable to the will 
of the king was always pleasing to him!! 

It is hard to say whether despotic power exerts 
its worst and most direful influences on those who 
wield it, or on those who have it to bear; on its mas- 
ters, or on its slaves. 

After the first feelings of pleasure which Astyages 
experienced in being relieved from the sense of guilt 
which oppressed his mind so long as he supposed 
that his orders for the murder of his infant grandchild 
had been obeyed, his former uneasiness lest the child 
should in future years become his rival and competi- 
tor for the possession of the Median throne, which 



$6 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 589 

had been the motive originally instigating him to the 
commission of the crime, returned in some measure 
again, and he began to consider whether it was not 
incumbent on him to take some measures to guard 
against such a result. The end of his deliberations 
was, that he concluded to send for the magi, or sooth- 
sayers, as he had done in the case of his dream, and 
obtain their judgment on the affair in the new aspect 
which it had now assumed. 

When the magi had heard the king's narrative of 
the circumstances under which the discovery of the 
child's preservation had been made, through com- 
plaints which had been preferred against him on ac- 
count of the manner in which he had exercised the 
prerogatives of a king among his playmates, they de- 
cided at once that Astyages had no cause for any 
further apprehensions in respect to the dreams which 
had disturbed him previous to his grandchild's birth. 
"He has been a king," they said, "and the danger 
is over. It is true that he has been a monarch only 
in play, but that is enough to satisfy and fulfill the 
presages of the vision. Occurrences very slight and 
trifling in themselves are often found to accomplish 
what seemed of very serious magnitude and moment, 
as portended. Your grandchild has been a king, and 
he will never reign again. You have, therefore, no 
further cause to fear, and may send him to his 
parents in Persia with perfect safety." 



B.C. 589] BIRTH OF CYRUS 57 

The king determined to adopt this advice. He 
ordered the soothsayers, however, not to remit their 
assiduity and vigilance, and if any signs or omens 
should appear to indicate approaching danger, he 
charged them to give him immediate warning. This 
they faithfully promised to do. They felt, they said, 
a personal interest in doing it; for Cyrus being a 
Persian prince, his accession to the Median throne 
would involve the subjection of the Medes to the 
Persian dominion, a result which they wished on 
every account to avoid. So, promising to watch 
vigilantly for every indication of danger, they left 
the presence of the king. The king then sent for 
Cyrus. 

It seems that Cyrus, though astonished at the 
great and mysterious changes which had taken place 
in his condition, was still ignorant of his true history. 
Astyages now told him that he was to go into Per- 
sia. "You will rejoin there," said he, "your true 
parents, who, you will find, are of very different 
rank in life from the herdsman whom you have lived 
with thus far. You will make the journey under the 
charge and escort of persons that I have appointed 
for the purpose. They will explain to you, on the 
way, the mystery in which your parentage and birth 
seems to you at present enveloped. You will find 
that I was induced many years ago, by the influence 
of an untoward dream, to treat you injuriously. But 



58 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 589 

all has ended well, and you can now go in peace to 
your proper home." 

As soon as the preparations for the journey could 
be made, Cyrus set out, under the care of the party 
appointed to conduct him, and went to Persia. His 
parents were at first dumb with astonishment, and 
were then overwhelmed with gladness and joy at 
seeing their much-loved and long-lost babe reappear, 
as if from the dead, in the form of this tall and 
handsome boy, with health, intelligence, and happi- 
ness beaming in his countenance. They overwhelmed 
him with caresses, and the heart of Mandane, espe- 
cially, was filled with pride and pleasure. 

As soon as Cyrus became somewhat settled in his 
new home, his parents began to make arrangements 
for giving him as complete an education as the means 
and opportunities of those days afforded. 

Xenophon, in his narrative of the early life of Cy- 
rus, gives a minute, and in some respects, quite an 
extraordinary account of the mode of life led in Cam- 
byses's court. The sons of all the nobles and officers 
of the court were educated together, within the pre- 
cincts of the royal palaces, or, rather, they spent 
their time together there, occupied in various 
pursuits and avocations, which were intended to 
train them for the duties of future life, though there 
was very little of what would be considered, in 
modern times, as education. They were not gener- 



B.C. 588] BIRTH OF CYRUS 59 

ally taught to read, nor could they, in fact, since 
there were no books, have used that art if they had 
acquired it. The only intellectual instruction which 
they seem to have received was what was called 
learning justice. The boys had certain teachers, who 
explained to them more or less formally, the general 
principles of right and wrong, the injunctions and 
prohibitions of the laws, and the obligations resulting 
from them, and the rules by which controversies be- 
tween man and man, arising in the various relations 
of life, should be settled. The boys were also trained 
to apply these principles and rules to the cases which 
occurred among themselves, each acting as judge in 
turn, to discuss and decide the questions that arose 
from time to time, either from real transactions as 
they occurred, or from hypothetical cases invented to 
put their powers to the test. To stimulate the exer- 
cise of their powers, they were rewarded when they 
decided right, and punished when they decided 
wrong. Cyrus himself was punished on one occasion 
for a wrong decision, under the following circum- 
stances : 

A bigger boy took away the coat of a smaller boy 
than himself, because it was larger than his own, and 
gave him his own smaller coat instead. The smaller 
boy complained of the wrong, and the case was re- 
ferred to Cyrus for his adjudication. After hearing 
the case, Cyrus decided that each boy should keep 



6o CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 588 

the coat that fitted him. The teacher condemned this 
as a very unjust decision. "When you are called 
upon," said he, "to consider a question of what fits 
best, then you should determine as you have done in 
this case; but when you are appointed to decide 
whose each coat is, and to adjudge it to the proper 
owner, then you are to consider what constitutes 
right possession, and whether he who takes a thing 
by force from one who is weaker than himself, should 
have it, or whether he who made it or purchased it 
should be protected in his property. You have de- 
cided against law, and in favor of violence and 
wrong." Cyrus's sentence was thus condemned, and 
he was punished for not reasoning more soundly. 

The boys at this Persian court were trained to 
many manly exercises. They were taught to wrestle 
and to run. They were instructed in the use of such 
arms as were employed in those times, and rendered 
dexterous in the use of them by daily exercises. 
They were taught to put their skill in practice, too, 
in hunting excursions, which they took, by turns, 
with the king, in the neighboring forest and moun- 
tains. On these occasions, they were armed with a 
bow, and a quiver of arrows, a shield, a small sword 
or dagger which was worn at the side in a sort of 
scabbard, and two javelins. One of these was in- 
tended to be thrown, the other to be retained in the 
hand, for use in close combat, in case the wild beast, 



B.C. 588] BIRTH OF CYRUS 61 

in his desperation, should advance to a personal ren- 
counter. These hunting expeditions were considered 
extremely important as a part of the system of youth- 
ful training. They were often long and fatiguing. 
The young men became inured, by means of them, 
to toil, and privation, and exposure. They had to 
make long marches, to encounter great dangers, to 
engage in desperate conflicts, and to submit some- 
times to the inconveniences of hunger and thirst, as 
well as exposure to the extremes of heat and cold, 
and to the violence of storms. All this was consid- 
ered as precisely the right sort of discipline to make 
them good soldiers in their future martial campaigns. 
Cyrus was not, himself, at this time, old enough 
to take a very active part in these severer services, as 
they belonged to a somewhat advanced stage of Per- 
sian education, and he was yet not quite twelve 
years old. He was a very beautiful boy, tall and 
graceful in form, and his countenance was striking 
and expressive. He was very frank and open in his 
disposition and character, speaking honestly, and 
without fear, the sentiments of his heart, in any 
presence and on all occasions. He was extremely 
kind hearted, and amiable, too, in his disposition, 
averse to saying or doing any thing which could 
give pain to those around him. In fact, the openness 
and cordiality of his address and manners, and the 
unaffected ingenuousness and sincerity which charac- 



62 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 588 

terized his disposition, made him a universal favorite. 
His frankness, his childish simplicity, his vivacity, his 
personal grace and beauty, and his generous and self- 
sacrificing . spirit, rendered him the object of general 
admiration throughout the court, and filled Mandane's 
heart with maternal gladness and pride. 




CHAPTER III. 

The Visit to Media. 

Astyages sends for Cyrus.— Cyrus goes to Media.— Cyrus's reception.— His 
astonishment. — Sympathy with childhood. — Pleasures of old age.— Char- 
acter of Cyrus.— First interview with his grandfather.— Dress of the 
king.— Cyrus's considerate reply.— Habits of Cyrus.— Horsemanship 
among the Persians. — Cyrus learns to ride. — His delight. — Amusements 
with the boys. — The cup-bearer. — The entertainment. — Cyrus's conver- 
sation.— Cyrus and the Sacian cup-bearer. — Cyrus slights him. — Accom- 
plishments of the cup-bearer.— Cyrus mimics him. — Cyrus declines to 
taste the wine. — Duties of a cup-bearer. — Cyrus's reason for not tasting 
the wine. — His descriptiou of a feast. — Cyrus's dislike of the cup-bearer. 
— His reason for it. — Amusement of the guests. — Cyrus becomes a greater 
favorite than ever. — Mandane proposes to return to Persia.— Cyrus con- 
sents to remain. — Fears of Mandane. — Departure of Mandane. — Rapid 
progress of Cyrus. — Hunting in the park.— Game becomes scarce. — De- 
velopment of Cyrus's powers, both of body and mind. — Hunting wild 
beasts. — Cyrus's conversation with his attendants. — Pursuit of a stag. — 
Cyrus's danger. — Cyrus's recklessness. — He is reproved by his compan- 
ions. — Cyrus kills a wild boar. — He is again reproved. — Cyrus carries 
his game home. — Distributes it among his companions. — Another hunt- 
ing party. — A plundering party.— Cyrus departs for Media. — Parting 
presents. — The presents returned. — Cyrus sends them back again. — 
Character of Xenophon's narrative.— Its trustworthiness. — Character of 
Cyrus as given by Xenophon.— Herodotus more trustworthy than 
Xenophon. 

When Cyrus was about twelve years old, if 
the narrative which Xenophon gives of 
his history is true, he was invited by his 
grandfather Astyages to make a visit to Media. As 
he was about ten years of age, according to He- 
rodotus, when he was restored to his parents, he 

(63) 



64 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 587 

could have been residing only two years in Persia 
when he received this invitation. During this period, 
Astyages had received, through Mandane and others, 
very glowing descriptions of the intelligence and vi- 
vacity of the young prince, and he naturally felt a 
desire to see him once more. In fact, Cyrus's per- 
sonal attractiveness and beauty, joined to a certain 
frank and noble generosity of spirit which he seems 
to have manifested in his earliest years, made him a 
universal favorite at home, and the reports of these 
qualities, and of the various sayings and doings on 
Cyrus's part, by which his disposition and character 
were revealed, awakened strongly in the mind of 
Astyages that kind of interest which a grandfather is 
always very prone to feel in a handsome and pre- 
cocious grandchild. 

As Cyrus had been sent to Persia as soon as his 
true rank had been discovered, he had had no oppor- 
tunities of seeing the splendor of royal life in Media, 
and the manners and habits of the Persians were very 
plain and simple. Cyrus was accordingly very much 
impressed with the magnificence of the scenes to 
which he was introduced when he arrived in Media, 
and with the gayeties and luxuries, the pomp and dis- 
play, and the spectacles and parades in which the 
Median court abounded. Astyages himself took great 
pleasure in witnessing and increasing his little grand- 
son's admiration for these wonders. It is one of the 



B.C. 587] VISIT TO MEDIA 65 

most extraordinary and beautiful of the provisions 
which God has made for securing the continuance of 
human happiness to the very end of life, that we can 
renew, through sympathy with children, the pleas- 
ures which, for ourselves alone, had long since, 
through repetition and satiety, lost their charm. The 
rides, the walks, the flowers gathered by the road- 
side, the rambles among pebbles on the beach, the 
songs, the games, and even the little picture-book of 
childish tales which have utterly and entirely lost 
their power to affect the mind even of middle life, 
directly and alone, regain their magic influence, and 
call up vividly all the old emotions, even to the heart 
of decrepit age, when it seeks these enjoyments in 
companionship and sympathy with children or grand- 
children beloved. By giving to us this capacity for 
renewing our own sensitiveness to the impressions 
of pleasure through sympathy with childhood, God 
has provided a true and effectual remedy for the 
satiety and insensibility of a^e. Let any one who is 
in the decline of years, whose time passes but 
heavily away, and who supposes that nothing can 
awaken interest in his mind or give him pleasure, 
make the experiment of taking children to a ride or 
to a concert, or to see a menagerie or a museum, 
and he will find that there is a way by which he can 
again enjoy very highly the pleasures which he had 
supposed were for him forever exhausted and gone. 

M. of H.— 11— 5 



66 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 587 

This was the result, at all events, in the case of 
Astyages and Cyrus. The monarch took a new pleas- 
ure in the luxuries and splendors which had long 
since lost their charm for him, in observing their in- 
fluence and effect upon the mind of his little grand- 
son. Cyrus, as we have already said, was very frank 
and open in his disposition, and spoke with the ut- 
most freedom of every thing that he saw. He was, 
of course, a privileged person, and could always say 
what the feeling of the moment and his own childish 
conceptions prompted, without danger. He had, how- 
ever, according to the account which Xenophon gives, 
a great deal of good sense, as well as of sprightliness 
and brilliancy; so that, while his remarks, through 
their originality and point, attracted every one's at- 
tention, there was a native politeness and sense of 
propriety which restrained him from saying any thing 
to give pain. Even when he disapproved of and con- 
demned what he saw in the arrangements of his 
grandfather's court or household, he did it in such a 
manner — so ingenuous, good-natured, and unassum- 
ing, that it amused all and offended none. 

In fact, on the very first interview which Astyages 
had with Cyrus, an instance of the boy's readiness 
and tact occurred, which impressed his grandfather 
very much in his favor. The Persians, as has been 
already remarked, were accustomed to dress very 
plainly, while, on the other hand, at the Median court 



B.C. 587] VISIT TO MEDIA 67 

the superior officers, and especially the king, were al- 
ways very splendidly adorned. Accordingly, when 
Cyrus was introduced into his grandfather's presence, 
he was quite dazzled with the display. The king 
wore a purple robe, very richly adorned, with a belt 
and collars, which were embroidered highly, and set 
with precious stones. He had bracelets, too, upon 
his wrists, of the most costly character. He wore 
flowing locks of artificial hair, and his face was 
painted, after the Median manner. Cyrus gazed upon 
this gay spectacle for a few moments in silence, and 
then exclaimed, "Why, mother! what a handsome 
man my grandfather is!" 

Such an exclamation, of course, made great amuse- 
ment both for the king himself and for the others 
who were present; and at length, Mandane, some- 
what indiscreetly, it must be confessed, asked Cyrus 
which of the two he thought the handsomest, his 
father or his grandfather. Cyrus escaped from the 
danger of deciding such a formidable question by say- 
ing that his father was the handsomest man in Per- 
sia, but his grandfather was the handsomest of all the 
Medes he had ever seen. Astyages was even more 
pleased by this proof of his grandson's adroitness and 
good sense than he had been with the compliment 
which the boy had paid to him; and thenceforward Cy- 
rus became an established favorite, and did and said, in 
his grandfather's presence, almost whatever he pleased. 



68. CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 587 

When the first childish feelings of excitement and 
curiosity had subsided, Cyrus seemed to attach very 
little value to the fine clothes and gay trappings with 
which his grandfather was disposed to adorn him, 
and to all the other external marks of parade and dis- 
play, which were generally so much prized among 
the Medes. He was much more inclined to continue 
in his former habits of plain dress and frugal means 
than to imitate Median ostentation and luxury. There 
was one pleasure, however, to be found in Media, 
which in Persia he had never enjoyed, that he prized 
very highly. That was the pleasure of learning to 
ride on horseback. The Persians, it seems, either be- 
cause their country was a rough and mountainous 
region, or for some other cause, were very little ac- 
customed to ride. They had very few horses, and 
there were no bodies of cavalry in their armies. The 
young men, therefore, were not trained to the art of 
horsemanship. Even in their hunting excursions they 
went always on foot, and were accustomed to make 
long marches through the forests and among the 
mountains in this manner, loaded heavily, too, all 
the time, with the burden of arms and provisions 
which they were obliged to carry. It was, therefore, 
a new pleasure to Cyrus to mount a horse. Horse- 
manship was a great art among the Medes. Their 
horses were beautiful and fleet, and splendidly capari- 
soned. Astyages provided for Cyrus the best animals 



B.C. 587] VISIT TO MEDIA 69 

which could be procured, and the boy was very 
proud and happy in exercising himself in the new 
accomplishment which he thus had the opportunity 
to acquire. To ride is always a great source of pleas- 
ure to boys; but in that period of the world, when 
physical strength was so much more important and 
more highly valued than at present, horsemanship 
was a vastly greater source of gratification than it is 
now. Cyrus felt that he had, at a single leap, quad- 
rupled his power, and thus risen at once to a far 
higher rank in the scale of being than he had occu- 
pied before; for, as soon as he had once learned to 
be at home in the saddle, and to subject the spirit 
and the power of his horse to his own will, the 
courage, the strength, and the speed of the animal 
became, in fact, almost personal acquisitions of his 
own. He felt, accordingly, when he was galloping 
over the plains, or pursuing deer in the park, or run- 
ning over the race-course with his companions, as if 
it was some newly-acquired strength and speed of 
his own that he was exercising, and which, by some 
magic power, was attended by no toilsome exertion, 
and followed by no fatigue. 

The various officers and servants in Astyages's 
household, as well as Astyages himself, soon began 
to feel a strong interest in the young prince. Each 
took a pleasure in explaining to him what pertained 
to their several departments, and in teaching him 



70 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 587 

whatever he desired to learn. The attendant highest 
in rank in such a household was the cup-bearer. He 
had the charge of the tables and the wine, and all 
the general arrangements of the palace seem to have 
been under his direction. The cup-bearer in Astya- 
ges's court was a Sacian. He was, however, less a 
friend to Cyrus than the rest. There was nothing 
within the range of his official duties that he could 
teach the boy; and Cyrus did not like his wine. 
Besides, when Astyages was engaged, it was the 
cup-bearer's duty to guard him from interruption, and 
at such times he often had occasion to restrain the 
young prince from the liberty of entering his grand- 
father's apartments as often as he pleased. 

At one of the entertainments which Astyages gave 
in his palace, Cyrus and Mandane were invited; and 
Astyages, in order to gratify the young prince as 
highly as possible, set before him a great variety of 
dishes — meats, and sauces, and delicacies of every 
kind — all served in costly vessels, and with great 
parade and ceremony. He supposed that Cyrus would 
have been enraptured with the luxury and splendor 
of the entertainment. He did not, however, seem 
much pleased. Astyages asked him the reason, and 
whether the feast which he saw before him was not 
a much finer one than he had been accustomed to see 
in Persia. Cyrus said, in reply, that it seemed to him 
to be very troublesome to have to eat a little of so 



B.C. 587] VISIT TO MEDIA 71 

many separate things. In Persia they managed, he 
thought, a great deal better. "And how do you 
manage in Persia?" asked Astyages. "Why, in Per- 
sia," replied Cyrus, "we have plain bread and meat, 
and eat it when we are hungry; so we get health 
and strength, and have very little trouble." Astyages 
laughed at this simplicity, and told Cyrus that he 
might, if he preferred it, live on plain bread and 
meat while he remained in Media, and then he 
would return to Persia in as good health as he came. 
Cyrus was satisfied; he, however, asked his grand- 
father if he would give him all those things which 
had been set before him, to dispose of as he thought 
proper; and on his grandfather's assenting, he began 
to call the various attendants up to the table, and 
to distribute the costly dishes to them, in return, 
as he said, for their various kindnesses to him. 
"This," said he to one, "is for you, because you 
take pains to teach me to ride; this," to another, 
"for you, because you gave me a javelin; this to 
you, because you serve my grandfather well and faith- 
fully; and this to you, because you honor my mother." 
Thus he went on until he had distributed all that he 
had received, though he omitted, as it seemed design- 
edly, to give any thing to the Sacian cup-bearer. 
This Sacian being an officer of high rank, of tall and 
handsome figure, and beautifully dressed, was the 
most conspicuous attendant at the feast, and could 



72 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 587 

not, therefore, have been accidentally passed by. 
Astyages accordingly asked Cyrus why he had not 
given any thing to the Sacian — the servant whom, as 
he said, he liked better than all the others. 

"And what is the reason," asked Cyrus, in reply, 
"that this Sacian is such a favorite with you?" 

"Have you not observed," replied Astyages, "how 
gracefully and elegantly he pours out the wine for 
me, and then hands me the cup?" 

The Sacian was, in fact, uncommonly accomplished 
in respect to the personal grace and dexterity for 
which cup-bearers in those days were most highly 
valued, and which constitute, in fact, so essential a 
part of the qualifications of a master of ceremonies 
at a royal court in every age. Cyrus, however, in- 
stead of yielding to this argument, said, in reply, 
that he could come into the room and pour out the 
wine as well as the Sacian could do it, and he asked 
his grandfather to allow him to try. Astyages con- 
sented. Cyrus then took the goblet of wine, and 
went out. In a moment he came in again, stepping 
grandly, as he entered, in mimicry of the Sacian, 
and with a countenance of assumed gravity and self- 
importance, which imitated so well the air and man- 
ner of the cup-bearer as greatly to amuse the whole 
company assembled. Cyrus advanced thus toward 
the king, and presented him with the cup, imitating, 
with the grace and dexterity natural to childhood, all 



B.C. 587] VISIT TO MEDIA 73 

the ceremonies which he had seen the cup-bearer 
himself perform, except that of tasting the wine. 
The king and Mandane laughed heartily. Cyrus then, 
throwing off his assumed character, jumped up into 
his grandfather's lap and kissed him, and turning to 
the cup-bearer, he said, "Now, Sacian, you are 
ruined. I shall get my grandfather to appoint me in 
your place. I can hand the wine as well as you, and 
without tasting it myself at all." 

"But why did you not taste it?" asked Astyages; 
"you should have performed that part of the duty as 
well as the rest." 

It was, in fact, a very essential part of the duty 
of a cup-bearer to taste the wine that he offered be- 
fore presenting it to the king. He did this, however, 
not by putting the cup to his lips, but by pouring 
out a little of it into the palm of his hand. This 
custom was adopted by these ancient despots to guard 
against the danger of being poisoned; for such a dan- 
ger would of course be very much diminished by requir- 
ing the officer who had the custody of the wine, and 
without whose knowledge no foreign substance could 
well be introduced into it, always to drink a portion 
of it himself immediately before tendering it to the 
king. 

To Astyages's question why he had not tasted the 
wine, Cyrus replied that he was afraid it was poisoned. 
"What led you to imagine that it was poisoned?" 



74 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 587 

asked his grandfather. "Because," said Cyrus, "it 
was poisoned the other day, when you made a feast 
for your friends, on your birth-day. I knew by the 
effects. It made you all crazy. The things that you 
do not allow us boys to do, you did yourselves, for 
you were very rude and noisy; you all bawled to- 
gether, so that nobody could hear or understand what 
any other person said. Presently you went to sing- 
ing in a very ridiculous manner, and when a singer 
ended his song, you applauded him, and declared that 
he had sung admirably, though nobody had paid at- 
tention. You went to telling stories, too, each one 
of his own accord, without succeeding in making 
any body listen to him. Finally, you got up and be- 
gan to dance, but it was out of all rule and measure; 
you could not even stand erect and steadily. Then, 
you all seemed to forget who and what you were. 
The guests paid no regard to you as their king, but 
treated you in a very familiar and disrespectful manner, 
and you treated them in the same way; so I thought 
that the wine that produced these effects must have 
been poisoned." 

Of course, Cyrus did not seriously mean that he 
thought the wine had been actually poisoned. He 
was old enough to understand its nature and effects. 
He undoubtedly intended his reply as a playful satire 
upon the intemperate excesses of his grandfather's 
court. 



B.C. 587] VISIT TO MEDIA 75 

" But have not you ever seen such things before ? " 
asked Astyages. "Does not your father ever drink 
wine until it makes him merry?" 

"No," replied Cyrus, "indeed he does not. He 
drinks only when he is thirsty, and then only enough 
for his thirst, and so he is not harmed." He then 
added, in a contemptuous tone, "He has no Sacian 
cup-bearer, you may depend, about him." 

"What is the reason my son," here asked Man- 
dane, "why you dislike this Sacian so much?" 

"Why, every time that I want to come and see 
my grandfather," replied Cyrus, "this teazing man 
always stops me, and will not let me come in. I 
wish, grandfather, you would let me have the rule 
over him just for three days." 

"Why, what would you do to him?" asked 
Astyages. 

"I would treat him as he treats me now," replied 
Cyrus. "I would stand at the door, as he does when 
I want to come in, and when he was coming for 
his dinner, I would stop him and say, 'You can not 
come in now; he is busy with some men.'" 

In saying this, Cyrus imitated, in a very ludicrous 
manner, the gravity and dignity of the Sacian's air 
and manner. 

"Then," he continued, "when he came to supper, 
I would say, 'He is bathing now; you must come 
some other time;' or else, 'He is going to sleep, and 



76 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 586 

you will disturb him.' So I would torment him all 
the time, as he now torments me, in keeping me out 
when I want to come and see you." 

Such conversation as this, half playful, half ear- 
nest, of course, amused Astyages and Mandane very 
much, as well as all the other listeners. There is a 
certain charm in the simplicity and confiding frank- 
ness of -childhood, when it is honest and sincere, 
which in Cyrus's case was heightened by his personal 
grace and beauty. He became, in fact, more and 
more a favorite the longer he remained. At length, 
the indulgence and the attentions which he received 
began to produce, in some degree, their usual injurious 
effects. Cyrus became too talkative, and sometimes 
he appeared a little vain. Still, there was so much 
true kindness of heart, such consideration for the feel- 
ings of others, and so respectful a regard for his 
grandfather, his mother, and his uncle,* that his 
faults were overlooked, and he was the life and soul 
of the company in all the social gatherings which took 
place in the palaces of the king. 

At length the time arrived for Mandane to return 
to Persia. Astyages proposed that she should leave 



* The uncle here referred to was Mandane's brother. His name 
was Cyaxares. He was at this time a royal prince, the heir apparent 
to the throne. He figures very conspicuously in the subsequent por- 
tions of Xenophon's history as Astyages's successor on the throne. 
Herodotus does not mention him at all, but makes Cyrus himself the 
direct successor of Astyages. 



B.C. 584] VISIT TO MEDIA 77 

Cyrus in Media, to be educated there under his grand- 
father's charge. Mandane replied that she was will- 
ing to gratify her father in every thing, but she 
thought it would be very hard to leave Cyrus behind, 
unless he was willing, of his own accord, to stay. 
Astyages then proposed the subject to Cyrus himself. 
"If you will stay," said he, "the Sacian ' shali no 
longer have power to keep you from coming in to 
see me; you shall come whenever you choose. Then, 
besides, you shall have the use of all my horses, and 
of as many more as you please, and when you go 
home at last you shall take as many as you wish 
with you. Then you may have all the animals in the 
park to hunt. You can pursue them on horseback, 
and shoot them with bows and arrows, or kill them 
with javelins, as men do with wild beasts in the 
woods. I will provide boys of your own age to play 
with you, and to ride and hunt with you, and will 
have all sorts of arms made of suitable size for you 
to use; and if there is any thing else that you should 
want at any time, you will only have to ask me for 
it, and I will immediately provide it." 

The pleasure of riding and of hunting in the park 
was very captivating to Cyrus's mind, and he con- 
sented to stay. He represented to his mother that it 
would be of great advantage to him, on his final re- 
turn to Persia, to be a skillful and powerful horseman, 
as that would at once give him the superiority over 



78 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 584 

all the Persian youths, for they were very little accus- 
tomed to ride. His mother had some fears lest, by 
too long a residence in the Median court, her son 
should acquire the luxurious habits, and proud and 
haughty manners, which would be constantly before 
him in his grandfather's example; but Cyrus said that 
his grandfather, being imperious himself, required all 
around him to be submissive, and that Mandane need 
not fear but that he would return at last as dutiful 
and docile as ever. It was decided therefore, that 
Cyrus should stay, while his mother, bidding her child 
and her father farewell, went back to Persia. 

After his mother was gone, Cyrus endeared him- 
self very strongly to all persons at his grandfather's 
court by the nobleness and generosity of character 
which he evinced, more and more, as his mind was 
gradually developed. He applied himself with great 
diligence to acquiring the various accomplishments 
and arts then most highly prized, such as leaping, 
vaulting, racing, riding, throwing the javelin, and 
drawing the bow. In the friendly contests which 
took place among the boys, to test their comparative 
excellence in these exercises, Cyrus would challenge 
those whom he knew to be superior to himself, and 
allow them to enjoy the pleasure of victory, while he 
was satisfied, himself, with the superior stimulus to 
exertion which he derived from coming thus into 
comparison with attainments higher than his own. 



B.C. 584] VISIT TO MEDIA 79 

He pressed forward boldly and ardently, undertaking 
every thing which promised to be, by any possibility, 
within his power; and, far from being disconcerted 
and discouraged at his mistakes and failures, he al- 
ways joined merrily in the laugh which they occa- 
sioned, and renewed his attempts with as much ardor 
and alacrity as before. Thus he made great and rapid 
progress, and learned first to equal and then to sur- 
pass one after another of his companions, and all 
without exciting any jealousy or envy. 

It was a great amusement both to him and to the 
other boys, his playmates, to hunt the animals in the 
park, especially the deer. The park was a somewhat 
extensive domain, but the animals were soon very 
much diminished by the slaughter which the boys 
made among them. Astyages endeavored to supply 
their places by procuring more. At length, however, 
all the sources of supply that were conveniently at 
hand were exhausted; and Cyrus, then finding that 
his grandfather was put to no little trouble to obtain 
tame animals for his park/ proposed, one day, that he 
should be allowed to go out into the forests, to hunt 
the wild beasts with the men. "There are animals 
enough there, grandfather," said Cyrus, "and I shall 
consider them all just as if you had procured them 
expressly for me." 

In fact, by this time Cyrus had grown up to be a 
tall and handsome young man, with strength and 



80 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 584 

vigor sufficient, under favorable circumstances, to en- 
dure the fatigues and exposures of real hunting. As 
his person had become developed, his mind and man- 
ners, too, had undergone a change. The gayety, the 
thoughtfulness, the self-confidence, and talkative vi- 
vacity of his childhood had disappeared, and he was 
fast becoming reserved, sedate, deliberate, and cau- 
tious. He no longer entertained his grandfather's 
company by his mimicry, his repartees, and his 
childish wit. He was silent; he observed, he listened, 
he shrank from publicity, and spoke, when he spoke 
at all, in subdued and gentle tones. Instead of crowd- 
ing forward eagerly into his grandfather's presence on 
all occasions, seasonable and unseasonable, as he had 
done before, he now became, of his own accord, very 
much afraid of occasioning trouble or interruption. 
He did not any longer need a Sacian to restrain him, 
but became, as Xenophon expresses it, a Sacian to 
himself, taking great care not to go into his grand- 
father's apartments without previously ascertaining that 
the king was disengaged; so that he and the Sacian 
now became very great friends. 

This being the state of the case, Astyages con- 
sented that Cyrus should go out with his son Cy- 
axares into the forests to hunt at the next opportunity. 
The party set out, when the time arrived, on horse- 
back, the hearts of Cyrus and his companions bound- 
ing, when they mounted their steeds, with feelings 



B.C. 584] VISIT TO MEDIA 81 

of elation and pride. There were certain attendants 
and guards appointed to keep near to Cyrus, and to 
help him in the rough and rocky parts of the coun- 
try, and to protect him from the dangers to which, 
if left alone, he would doubtless have been exposed. 
Cyrus talked with these attendants, as they rode 
along, of the mode of hunting, of the difficulties of 
hunting, the characters and the habits of the various 
wild beasts, and of the dangers to be shunned. His 
attendants told him that the dangerous beasts were 
bears, lions, tigers, boars, and leopards; that such an- 
imals as these often attacked and killed men, and that 
he must avoid them; but that stags, wild goats, wild 
sheep, and wild asses were harmless, and that he 
could hunt such animals as they as much as he 
pleased. They told him, moreover, that steep, rocky, 
and broken ground was more dangerous to the hunts- 
man than any beasts, however ferocious; for riders, 
off their guard, driving impetuously over such ways, 
were often thrown from their horses, or fell with 
them over precipices or into chasms, and were killed. 
Cyrus listened very attentively to these instruc- 
tions, with every disposition to give heed to them; 
but when he came to the trial, he found that the 
ardor and impetuosity of the chase drove all consid- 
erations of prudence wholly from his mind. When 
the men got into the forest, those that were with 
Cyrus roused a stag, and all set off eagerly in pur- 

M. ofH.— 11— 6 



82 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 584 

suit, Cyrus at the head. Away went the stag over 
rough and dangerous ground. The rest of the party 
turned aside, or followed cautiously, while Cyrus 
urged his horse forward in the wildest excitement, 
thinking of nothing, and seeing nothing but the stag 
bounding before him. The horse came to a chasm 
which he was obliged to leap. But the distance was 
too great; he came down upon his knees, threw Cy- 
rus violently forward almost over his head, and then, 
with a bound and a scramble, recovered his feet and 
went on. Cyrus clung tenaciously to the horse's 
mane, and at length succeeded in getting back to the 
saddle, though, for a moment, his life was in the 
most imminent danger. His attendants were extremely 
terrified, though he himself seemed to experience no 
feeling but the pleasurable excitement of the chase; 
for, as soon as the obstacle was cleared, he pressed 
on with new impetuosity after the stag, overtook 
him, and killed him with his javelin. Then, alighting 
from his horse, he stood by the side of his victim, to 
wait the coming up of the party, his countenance 
beaming with an expression of triumph and delight. 

His attendants, however, on their arrival, instead 
of applauding his exploit, or seeming to share his 
pleasure, sharply reproved him for his recklessness 
and daring. He had entirely disregarded their in- 
structions, and they threatened to report him to his 
grandfather. Cyrus looked perplexed and uneasy. 



B.C. 584] VISIT TO MEDIA 83 

The excitement and the pleasure of victory and suc- 
cess were struggling in his mind against his dread of 
his grandfather's displeasure. Just at this instant he 
heard a new halloo. Another party in the neighbor- 
hood had roused fresh game. All Cyrus's returning 
sense of duty was blown at once to the winds. He 
sprang to his horse with a shout of wild enthusiasm, 
and rode off toward the scene of action. The game 
which had been started, a furious wild boar, just then 
issued from a thicket directly before him. Cyrus, in- 
stead of shunning the danger, as he ought to have 
done, in obedience to the orders of those to whom 
his grandfather had intrusted him, dashed on to meet 
the boar at full speed, and aimed so true a thrust 
with his javelin against the beast as to transfix him 
in the forehead. The boar fell, and lay upon the 
ground in dying struggles, while Cyrus's heart was 
filled with joy and triumph even greater than before. 

When Cyaxares came up, he reproved Cyrus anew 
for running such risks. Cyrus received the reproaches 
meekly, and then asked Cyaxares to give him the 
two animals that he had killed; he wanted to carry 
them home to his grandfather. 

"By no means," said Cyaxares; "your grand- 
father would be very much displeased to know what 
you had done. He would not only condemn you for 
acting thus, but he would reprove us too, severely, 
for allowing you to do so." 



84 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 584 

"Let him punish me," said Cyrus, "if he wishes, 
after I have shown him the stag and the boar, and 
you may punish me too, if you think best; but do 
let me show them to him." 

Cyaxares consented, and Cyrus made arrangements 
to have the bodies of the beasts and the bloody jave- 
lins carried home. Cyrus then presented the car- 
casses to his grandfather, saying that it was some 
game which he had taken for him. The javelins he 
did not exhibit directly, but he laid them down in a 
place where his grandfather would see them. Asty- 
ages thanked him for his presents, but he said he had 
no such need of presents of game as to wish his 
grandson to expose himself to such imminent dangers 
to take it. 

"Well, grandfather," said Cyrus, "if you do not 
want the meat, give it tp me, and I will divide it 
among my friends." Astyages agreed to this, and 
Cyrus divided his booty among his companions, the 
boys, who had before hunted with him in the park. 
They, of course, took their several portions home, 
each one carrying with his share of the gift a glow- 
ing account of the valor and prowess of the giver. 
It was not generosity which led Cyrus thus to give 
away the fruits of his toil, but a desire to widen and 
extend his fame. 

When Cyrus was about fifteen or sixteen years 
old, his uncle Cyaxares was married, and, in cele- 



B.C. 584] VISIT TO MEDIA 85 

brating his nuptials, he formed a great hunting party, 
to go to the frontiers between Media and Assyria to 
hunt there, where it was said that game of all kinds 
was very plentiful, as it usually was, in fact, in those 
days, in the neighborhood of disturbed and unsettled 
frontiers. The very causes which made such a region 
as this a safe and frequented haunt for wild beasts, 
made it unsafe for men, and Cyaxares did not con- 
sider it prudent to venture on his excursion without 
a considerable force to attend him. His hunting party 
formed, therefore, quite a little army. They set out 
from home with great pomp and ceremony, and pro- 
ceeded to the frontiers in regular organization and or- 
der, like a body of troops on a march. There was a 
squadron of horsemen, who were to hunt the beasts 
in the open parts of the forest, and a considerable de- 
tachment of light-armed footmen also, who were to 
rouse the game, and drive them out of their lurking 
places in the glens and thickets. Cyrus accompanied 
this expedition. 

When Cyaxares reached the frontiers, he con- 
cluded, instead of contenting himself and his party 
with hunting wild beasts, to make an incursion for 
plunder into the Assyrian territory, that being, as 
Xenophon expresses it, a more noble enterprise than 
the other. The nobleness, it seems, consisted in the 
greater imminence of the danger, in having to contend 
with armed men instead of ferocious brutes, and in 



86 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 584 

the higher value of the prizes which they would ob- 
tain in case of success. The idea of there being any 
injustice or wrong in this wanton and unprovoked 
aggression upon the territories of a neighboring nation 
seems not to have entered the mind either of the 
royal robber himself or of his historian. 

Cyrus distinguished himself very conspicuously in 
this expedition, as he had done in the hunting excur- 
sion before; and when, at length, this nuptial party 
returned home, loaded with booty, the tidings of Cy- 
rus's exploits went to Persia. Cambyses thought that 
if his son was beginning to take part, as a soldier, in 
military campaigns, it was time for him to be recalled. 
He accordingly sent for him, and Cyrus began to 
make preparations for his return. 

The day of his departure was a day of great sad- 
ness and sorrow among all his companions in Media, 
and, in fact, among all the members of his grand- 
father's household. They accompanied him for some 
distance on his way, and took leave of him, at last, 
with much regret and many tears. Cyrus distributed 
among them, as they left him, the various articles of 
value which he possessed, such as his arms, and or- 
naments of various kinds, and costly articles of dress. 
He gave his Median robe, at last, to a certain youth 
whom he said he loved the best of all. The name 
of this special favorite was Araspes. As these his 
friends parted from him, Cyrus took his leave of them, 



B.C. 584] VISIT TO MEDIA 87 

one by one, as they returned, with many proofs ol 
his affection for them, and with a very sad and heavy 
heart. 

The boys and young men who had received these 
presents took them home, but they were so valuable, 
that they or their parents, supposing that they were 
given under a momentary impulse of feeling, and that 
they ought to be returned, sent them all to Astyages. 
Astyages sent them to Persia, to be restored to Cyrus. 
Cyrus sent them all back again to his grandfather, 
with a request that he would distribute them again 
to those to whom Cyrus had originally given them, 
"which," said he, "grandfather, you must do, if you 
wish me ever to come to Media again with pleasure 
and not with shame." 

Such is the story which Xenophon gives of Cyrus's 
visit to Media, and in its romantic and incredible de- 
tails it is a specimen of the whole narrative which 
this author has given of his hero's life. It is not, at 
the present day, supposed that these, and the many 
similar stories with which Xenophon's books are filled, 
are true history. It is not even thought that Xenophon 
really intended to offer his narrative as history, but 
rather as an historical romance — a fiction founded on 
fact, written to amuse the warriors of his times, and 
to serve as a vehicle for inculcating such principles of 
philosophy, of morals, and of military science as 
seemed to him worthy of the attention of his country- 



88 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 584 

men. The story has no air of reality about it from 
beginning to end, but only a sort of poetical fitness 
of one part to another, much more like the contrived 
coincidences of a romance writer than like the real 
events and transactions of actual life. A very large 
portion of the work consists of long discourses on 
military, moral, and often metaphysical philosophy, 
made by generals in council, or commanders in con- 
versation with each other when going into battle. 
The occurrences and incidents out of which these 
conversations arise always take place just as they are 
wanted and arrange themselves in a manner to pro- 
duce the highest dramatic effect; like the stag, the 
broken ground, and the wild boar in Cyrus's hunting, 
which came, one after another, to furnish the hero 
with poetical occasions for displaying his juvenile 
bravery, and to produce the most picturesque and 
poetical grouping of incidents and events. Xenophon 
too, like other writers of romances, makes his hero a 
model of military virtue and magnanimity, according 
to the ideas of the times. He displays superhuman 
sagacity in circumventing his foes, he performs prod- 
igies of valor, he forms the most sentimental attach- 
ments, and receives with a romantic confidence the ad- 
hesions of men who come over to his side from the 
enemy, and who, being traitors to old friends, would 
seem to be only worthy of suspicion and distrust in 
being received by new ones. Every thing, however, 



B.C 584] VISIT TO MEDIA 89 

results well; all whom he confides in prove worthy; 
all whom he distrusts prove base. All his friends 
are generous and noble, and all his enemies treacher- 
ous and cruel. Every prediction which he makes is 
verified, and all his enterprises succeed; or if, in any 
respect, there occurs a partial failure, the incident is 
always of such a character as to heighten the impres- 
sion which is made by the final and triumphant suc- 
cess. 

Such being the character of Xenophon's tale, or 
rather drama, we shall content ourselves, after giving 
this specimen of it, with adding, in some subsequent 
chapters, a few other scenes and incidents drawn from 
his narrative. In the mean time, in relating the great 
leading events of Cyrus's life, we shall take Herodotus 
for our guide, by following his more sober, and, prob- 
ably, more trustworthy record. 




CHAPTER IV. 

Crcesus. 

The wealth of Croesus.— The Mermnadse.— Origin of the Merninadean dy- 
nasty. — Candaules and Gyges. — A famous proposal of Candaules. — Re- 
monstrance of Gyges. — Nyssia's suppressed indignation.— She sends for 
Gyges. — Candaules is assassinated. — Gyges succeeds. — The I,ydian 
power extended. — The wars of Alyattes. — Destruction of Minerva's tem- 
ple. — Stratagem of Thrasybulus. — Success of the stratagem. — A treaty 
of peace concluded. — Story of Arion and the dolphin. — The alternative. 
— Arion leaps into the sea.— He is preserved by a dolphin.— Death of 
Alyattes.— Succession of Crcesus.— Plans of Crcesus for subjugating the 
islands.— The golden sands of the Pactolus.— Tlie story of Midas.— 
Wealth and renown of Crcesus.— Visit of Solon.— Crcesus and Solon.— 
What constitutes happiness.— Cleobis and Bito.— Crcesus displeased with 
Solon.— Solon treated with neglect. — The two sons of Crcesus. — The 
king's dream. — Arrival of Adrastus. — The wild boar.— Precautions of 
Crcesus. — Remonstrance of Atys. — Explanation of Crcesus. — Atys joins 
the expedition.— He is killed by Adrastus. — Anguish of Adrastus. — 
Burial of Atys. — Adrastus kills himself. — Grief of Crcesus. 

The scene of our narrative must now be changed, 
for a time, from Persia and Media, in the 
East, to Asia Minor, in the West, where the 
great Croesus, originally King of Lydia, was at this 
time gradually extending his empire along the shores 
of the /Egean Sea. The name of Croesus is associ- 
ated in the minds of men with the idea of boundless 
wealth, the phrase "as rich as Crcesus" having been 
a common proverb in all the modern languages of 

Europe for many centuries. It was to this Crcesus, 
(90) 



B.C. 718] CROESUS 91 

King of Lydia, whose story we are about to relate, 
that the proverb alludes. 

The country of Lydia, over which this famous 
sovereign originally ruled, was in the western part of 
Asia Minor, bordering on the /TEgean Sea. Croesus 
himself belonged to a dynasty, or race of kings, called 
the Mermnadse. The founder of this line was Gyges, 
who displaced the dynasty which preceded him and 
established his own by a revolution effected in a very 
remarkable manner. The circumstances were as 
follows : 

The name of the last monarch of the old dynasty 
— the one, namely, whom Gyges displaced — was 
Candaules. Gyges was a household servant in Can- 
daules's family — a sort of slave, in fact, and yet, as 
such slaves often were in those tude days, a personal 
favorite and boon companion of his master. Candau- 
les was a dissolute and unprincipled tyrant. He had, 
however, a very beautiful and modest wife, whose 
name was Nyssia. Candaules was very proud of the 
beauty of his queen, and was always extolling it, 
though, as the event proved, he could not have felt 
for her any true and honest affection. In some of his 
revels with Gyges, when he was boasting of Nyssia's 
charms, he said that the beauty of her form and fig- 
ure, when unrobed, was even more exquisite than 
that of her features; and, finally, the monster, grow- 
ing more and more excited, and having rendered 



92 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 718 

himself still more of a brute than he was by nature 
by the influence of wine, declared that Gyges should 
see for himself. He would conceal him, he said, in 
the queen's bed-chamber, while she was undressing 
for the night. Gyges remonstrated very earnestly 
against this proposal. It would be doing the innocent 
queen, he said, a great wrong. He assured the king, 
too, that he believed fully all that he said about Nys- 
sia's beauty, without applying such a test, and he 
begged him not to insist upon a proposal with which 
it would be criminal to comply. 

The king, however, did insist upon it, and Gyges 
was compelled to yield. Whatever is offered as a 
favor by a half-intoxicated despot to an humble in- 
ferior, it would be death to refuse. Gyges allowed 
himself to be placed behind a half-opened door of the 
king's apartment, when the king retired to it for the 
night. There he was to remain while the queen 
began to unrobe herself for retiring, with a strict in- 
junction to withdraw at a certain time which the 
king designated, and with the utmost caution, so as 
to prevent being observed by the queen. Gyges did 
as he was ordered. The beautiful queen laid aside 
her garments and made her toilet for the night with 
all the quiet composure and confidence which a woman 
might be expected to feel while in so sacred and 
inviolable a sanctuary, and in the presence and under 
the guardianship of her husband. Just as she was 



B.C. 718] CRCESUS 93 

about to retire to rest, some movement alarmed her. 
It was Gyges going away. She saw him. She in- 
stantly understood the case. She was overwhelmed 
with indignation and shame. She, however, sup- 
pressed and concealed her emotions; she spoke to 
Candaules in her usual tone of voice, and he, on his 
part, secretly rejoiced in the adroit and successful 
manner in which his little contrivance had been car- 
ried into execution. 

The next morning Nyssia sent, by some of her 
confidential messengers, for Gyges to come to her. 
He came, with some forebodings, perhaps, but with- 
out any direct reason for believing that what he had 
done had been discovered. Nyssia, however, informed 
him. that she knew all, and that either he or her 
husband must die. Gyges earnestly remonstrated 
against this decision, and supplicated forgiveness. He 
explained the circumstances under which the act had 
been performed, which seemed, at least so far as he 
was concerned, to palliate the deed. The queen was, 
however, fixed and decided. It was wholly inconsist- 
ent with her ideas of womanly delicacy that there 
should be two living men who had both been ad- 
mitted to her bed-chamber. "The king," she] said, 
"by what he has done, has forfeited his claims to me 
and resigned me to you. If you will kill him, seize 
his kingdom, and make me your wife, all shall be 
well; otherwise you must prepare to die." 



94 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 718 

From this hard alternative, Gyges chose to assas- 
sinate the king, and to make the lovely object before 
him his own. The excitement of indignation and re- 
sentment which glowed upon her cheek, and with 
which her bosom was heaving, made her more beau- 
tiful than ever. "How shall our purpose be accom- 
plished?" asked Gyges. "The deed," she replied, 
"shall be perpetrated in the very place which was 
the scene of the dishonor done to me. I will admit 
you into our bed-chamber in my turn, and you shall 
kill Candaules in his bed." 

When night came, Nyssia stationed Gyges again 
behind the same door where the king had placed 
him. He had a dagger in his hand. He waited there 
till Candaules was asleep. Then at a signal given 
him by the queen, he entered, and stabbed the hus- 
band in his bed. He married Nyssia, and possessed 
himself of the kingdom. After this, he and his suc- 
cessors reigned for many years over the kingdom of 
Lydia, constituting the dynasty of the Mermnadae, 
from which, in process of time, King Croesus de- 
scended. 

The successive sovereigns of this dynasty gradu- 
ally extended the Lydian power over the countries 
around them. The name of Croesus's father, who 
was the monarch that immediately preceded him, was 
Alyattes. Alyattes waged war toward the southward, 
into the territories of the city of Miletus. He made 



B.C. $65] CRCESUS 95 

annual incursions into the country of the Milesians 
for plunder, always taking care, however, while he 
seized all the movable property that he could find, 
to leave the villages and towns, and all the hamlets 
of the laborers without injury. The reason for this 
was, that he did not wish to drive away the popu- 
lation, but to encourage them to remain and cultivate 
their lands, so that there might be new flocks and 
herds, and new stores of corn, and fruit, and wine, 
for him to plunder from in succeeding years. At 
last, on one of these marauding excursions, some 
fires which were accidentally set in a field spread 
into a neighboring town, and destroyed, among other 
buildings, a temple consecrated to Minerva. After 
this, Alyattes found himself quite unsuccessful in all 
his expeditions and campaigns. He sent to a famous 
oracle to ask the reason. 

"You can expect no more success," replied the 
oracle, "until you rebuild the temple that you have 
destroyed." 

But how could he rebuild the temple? The site 
was in the enemy's country. His men could not 
build an edifice and defend themselves, at the same 
time, from the attacks of their foes. He concluded 
to demand a truce of the Milesians, until the recon- 
struction should be completed, and he sent embassa- 
dors to Miletus, accordingly, to make the proposal. 

The proposition for a truce resulted in a perma- 



96 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 565 

nent peace, by means of a very singular stratagem 
which Thrasybulus, the king of Miletus, practiced upon 
Alyattes. It seems that Alyattes supposed that 
Thrasybulus had been reduced to great distress by 
the loss and destruction of provisions and stores in 
various parts of the country, and that he would soon 
be forced to yield up his kingdom. This was, in 
fact, the case; but Thrasybulus determined to disguise 
his real condition, and to destroy, by an artifice, all 
the hopes which Alyattes had formed from the sup- 
posed scarcity in the city. When the herald whom 
Alyattes sent to Miletus was about to arrive, Thrasy- 
bulus collected all the corn, and grain, and other 
provisions which he could command, and had them 
heaped up in a public part of the city, where the 
herald was to be received, so as to present indications 
of the most ample abundance of food. He collected a 
large body of his soldiers, too, and gave them leave to 
feast themselves without restriction on what he had 
thus gathered. Accordingly, when the herald came 
in to deliver his message, he found the whole city 
given up to feasting and revelry, and he saw stores 
of provisions at hand, which were in process of being 
distributed and consumed with the most prodigal pro- 
fusion. The herald reported this state of things to 
Alyattes. Alyattes then gave up all hopes of reduc- 
ing Miletus by famine, and made a permanent peace, 
binding himself to its stipulations by a very solemn 



B.C. s^sl CRCESUS 97 

treaty. To celebrate the event, too, he built two 
temples to Minerva instead of one. 

A story is related by Herodotus of a remarkable 
escape made by Arion at sea, which occurred during 
the reign of Alyattes, the father of Croesus. We will 
give the story as Herodotus relates it, leaving the 
reader to judge for himself whether such tales were prob- 
ably true, or were only introduced by Herodotus into 
his narrative to make his histories more entertaining 
to the Grecian assemblies to whom he read them. 
Arion was a celebrated singer. He had been making 
a tour in Sicily and in the southern part of Italy, where 
he had acquired considerable wealth, and he was now 
returning to Corinth. He embarked at Tarentum, 
which is a city in. the southern part of Italy, in a Co- 
rinthian vessel, and put to sea. When the sailors 
found that they had him in their power, they deter- 
mined to rob and murder him. They accordingly seized 
his gold and silver, and then told him that he might 
either kill himself or jump overboard into the sea. 
One or the other he must do. If he would kill him- 
self on board the vessel, they would give him decent 
burial when they reached the shore. 

Arion seemed at first at a loss how to decide in so 
hard an alternative. At length he told the sailors that 
he would throw himself into the sea, but he asked 
permission to sing them one of his songs before he 
took the fatal plunge. They consented. He accord- 

M. of H.— 11— 7 



98 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 560 

ingly went into the cabin, and spent some time in 
dressing himself magnificently in the splendid and 
richly-ornamented robes in which he had been accus- 
tomed to appear upon the stage. At length he reap- 
peared, and took his position on the side of the ship, 
with his harp in his hand. He sang his song, accom- 
panying himself upon the harp, and then, when he had 
finished his performance, he leaped into the sea. The 
seamen divided their plunder and pursued their voy- 
age. 

Arion, however, instead of being drowned, was 
taken up by a dolphin that had been charmed by his 
song, and was borne by him to Taenarus, which is 
the promontory formed by the southern extremity of 
the Peloponnesus. There Arion landed in safety. 
From Taenarus he proceeded to Corinth, wearing the 
same dress in which he had plunged into the sea. 
On his arrival, he complained to the king of the crime 
which the sailors had committed, and narrated his 
wonderful escape. The king did not believe him, but 
put him in prison to wait until the ship should arrive. 
When at last the vessel came, the king summoned the 
sailors into his presence, and asked them if they knew 
any thing of Arion. Arion himself had been pre- 
viously placed in an adjoining room, ready to be called 
in as soon as his presence was required. The mariners 
answered to the question which the king put to them, 
that they had seen Arion in Tarentum, and that they 



B.C. 560] CRCESUS 99 

had left him there. Arion was then himself called in. 
His sudden appearance, clothed as he was in the same 
dress in which the mariners had seen him leap into 
the sea, so terrified the conscience-stricken criminals, 
that they confessed their guilt, and were all punished 
by the king. A marble statue, representing a man 
seated upon a dolphin, was erected at Taenarus to 
commemorate this event, where it remained for centu- 
ries afterward, a monument of the wonder which Arion 
had achieved. 

At length Alyattes died and Croesus succeeded 
him. Croesus extended still further the power and 
fame of the Lydian empire, and was for a time very 
successful in all his military schemes. By looking 
upon the map, the reader will see that the /Egean 
Sea, along the coasts of Asia Minor, is studded with 
islands. These islands were in those days very fertile 
and beautiful, and were densely inhabited by a com- 
mercial and maritime people, who possessed a multi- 
tude of ships, and were very powerful in all the 
adjacent seas. Of course their land forces were very 
few, whether of horse or of foot, as the habits and man- 
ners of such a sea-going people were all foreign to 
modes of warfare required in land campaigns. On the 
sea, however, these islanders were supreme. 

Croesus formed a scheme for attacking these islands 
and bringing them under his sway, and he began to 
make preparations for building and equipping a fleet 

L ■"• 



ioo CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 560 

for this purpose, though, of course, his subjects were 
as unused to the sea as the nautical islanders were to 
military operations on the land. While he was mak- 
ing these preparations, a certain philosopher was 
visiting at his court: he was one of the seven wise 
men of Greece, who had recently come from the 
Peloponnesus. Croesus asked him if there was any 
news from that country. "I heard," said the philoso- 
pher, "that the inhabitants of the islands were pre- 
paring to invade your dominions with a squadron of 
ten thousand horse." Croesus, who supposed that 
the philosopher was serious, appeared greatly pleased 
and elated at the prospect of his sea-faring enemies 
attempting to meet him as a body of cavalry. "No 
doubt," said the philosopher, after a little pause, "you 
would be pleased to have those sailors attempt to 
contend with you on horseback; but do you not 
suppose that they will be equally pleased at the 
prospect of encountering Lydian landsmen on the 
ocean ?" 

Croesus perceived the absurdity of his plan, and 
abandoned the attempt to execute it. 

Croesus acquired the enormous wealth for which 
he was so celebrated from the golden sands of the 
River Pactolus, which flowed through his kingdom. 
The river brought the particles of gold, in grains, and 
globules, and flakes, from the mountains above, and 
the servants and slaves of Croesus washed the sands, 



B.C. 560] CROESUS 101 

and thus separated the heavier deposit of the metal. 
In respect to the origin of the gold, however, the 
people who lived upon the banks of the river had a 
different explanation from the simple one that the 
waters brought down the treasure from the moun- 
tain ravines. They had a story that, ages before, a 
certain king, named Midas, rendered some service to 
a god, who, in return, offered to grant him any favor 
that he might ask. Midas asked that the power 
might be granted him to turn whatever he touched 
into gold. The power was bestowed, and Midas, 
after changing various objects around him into gold 
until he was satisfied, began to find his new acquisi- 
tion a source of great inconvenience and danger. His 
clothes, his food, and even his drink, were changed 
to gold when he touched them. He found that he 
was about to starve in the midst of a world of 
treasure, and he implored the god to take back the 
fatal gift. The god directed him to go and bathe in 
the Pactolus, and he should be restored to his former 
condition. Midas did so, and was saved, but not 
without transforming a great portion of the sands of the 
stream into gold during the process of his restoration. 
Croesus thus attained quite speedily to a very high 
degree of wealth, prosperity, and renown. His do- 
minions were widely extended; his palaces were full 
of treasures; his court was a scene of unexampled 
magnificence and splendor. While in the enjoyment 



io2 CYRUS THE GREAT 

of all this grandeur, he was visited by Solon, the 
celebrated Grecian law-giver, who was traveling in 
that part of the world to observe the institutions and 
customs of different states. Croesus received Solon 
with great distinction, and showed him all his treasures. 
At last he one day said to him, "You have traveled, 
Solon, over many countries, and have studied, with 
a great deal of attention and care, all that you have 
seen. I have heard great commendations of your 
wisdom, and I should like very much to know who, 
of all the persons you have ever known, has seemed 
to you most fortunate and happy." 

The king had no doubt that the answer would be 
that he himself was the one. 

"I think," replied Solon, after a pause, "that Tellus, 
an Athenian citizen, was the most fortunate and happy 
man I have ever known." 

"Tellus, an Athenian!" repeated Croesus, surprised. 
"What was there in his case which you consider so 
remarkable ? " 

"He was a peaceful and quiet citizen of Athens," 
said Solon. "He lived happily with his family, under 
a most excellent government, enjoying for many 
years all the pleasures of domestic life. He had sev- 
eral amiable and virtuous children, who all grew up 
to maturity, and loved and honored their parents as 
long as they lived. At length, when his life was 
drawing toward its natural termination, a war broke 



B.C. 545] CRCESUS 103 

out with a neighboring nation, and Tellus went with 
the army to defend his country. He aided very es- 
sentially in the defeat of the enemy, but fell, at last, on 
the field of battle. His countrymen greatly lamented 
his death. They buried him publicly where he fell, 
with every circumstance of honor." 

Solon was proceeding to recount the domestic and 
social virtues of Tellus, and the peaceful happiness 
which he enjoyed as the result of them, when Croesus 
interrupted him to ask who, next to Tellus, he con- 
sidered the most fortunate and happy man. 

Solon, after a little farther reflection, mentioned 
two brothers, Cleobis and Bito, private persons among 
the Greeks, who were celebrated for their great per- 
sonal strength, and also for their devoted attachment 
to their mother. He related to Croesus a story of a 
feat they performed on one occasion, when their 
mother, at the celebration of some public festival, was 
going some miles to a temple, in a car to be drawn 
by oxen. There happened to be some delay in 
bringing the oxen, while the mother was waiting in 
the car. As the oxen did not come, the young men 
took hold of the pole of the car themselves, and 
walked off at their ease with the load, amid the ac- 
clamations of the spectators, while their mother's 
heart was filled with exultation and pride. 

Croesus here interrupted the philosopher again, and 
expressed his surprise that he should place private 



104 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 545 

men, like those whom he had named, who possessed 
no wealth, or prominence, or power, before a mon- 
arch like him, occupying a station of such high 
authority and renown, and possessing such boundless 
treasures. 

"Croesus," replied Solon, "I see you now, indeed, 
at the height of human power and grandeur. You 
reign supreme over many nations, and you are in the 
enjoyment of unbounded affluence, and every species 
of luxury and splendor. I can not, however, decide 
whether I am to consider you a fortunate and happy 
man, until I know how all this is to end. If we con- 
sider seventy years as the allotted period of life, you 
have a large portion of your existence yet to come, 
and we can not with certainty pronounce any man 
happy till his life is ended." 

This conversation with Solon made a deep impres- 
sion upon Croesus's mind, as was afterward proved in 
a remarkable manner; but the impression was not a 
pleasant or a salutary one. The king, however, sup- 
pressed for the time the resentment which the pres- 
entation of these unwelcome truths awakened within 
him, though he treated Solon afterward with indiffer- 
ence and neglect, so that the philosopher soon found 
it best to withdraw. 

Croesus had two sons. One was deaf and dumb. 
The other was a young man of uncommon promise, 
and, of course, as he only could succeed his father in 



B.C. 545] CRCESUS 105 

the government of the kingdom, he was naturally an 
object of the king's particular attention and care. His 
name was Atys. He was unmarried. He was, how- 
ever, old enough to have the command of a consid- 
erable body of troops, and he had often distinguished 
himself in the Lydian campaigns. One night the 
king had a dream about Atys which greatly alarmed 
him. He dreamed that his son was destined to die 
of a wound received from the point of an iron spear. 
The king was made very uneasy by this ominous 
dream. He determined at once to take every precau- 
tion in his power to avert the threatened danger. He 
immediately detached Atys from his command in the 
army, and made provision for his marriage. He then 
very carefully collected all the darts, javelins, and every 
other iron-pointed weapon that he could find about 
the palace, and caused them to be deposited carefully 
in a secure place, where there could be no danger 
even of an accidental injury from them. 

About that time there appeared at the court of 
Croesus a stranger from Phrygia, a neighboring state, 
who presented himself at the palace and asked for 
protection. He was a prince of the royal family of 
Phrygia, and his name was Adrastus. He had had 
the misfortune, by some unhappy accident, to kill his 
brother; his father, in consequence of it, had banished 
him from his native land, and he was now homeless, 
friendless, and destitute. 



106 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 545 

Croesus received him kindly. "Your family have 
always been my friends," said he, "and I am glad 
of the opportunity to make some return by extending 
my protection to any member of it suffering misfor- 
tune. You shall reside in my palace, and all your 
wants shall be ^supplied. Come in, and forget the 
calamity which has befallen you, instead of distress- 
ing yourself with it as if it had been a crime." 

Thus Croesus received the unfortunate Adrastus 
into his household. After the prince had been domi- 
ciliated in his new home for some time, messengers 
came from Mysia, a neighboring state, saying that a 
wild boar of enormous size and unusual ferocity had 
come down from the mountains, and was lurking in 
the cultivated country, in thickets and glens, from 
which, at night, he made great havoc among the 
flocks and herds, and asking that Croesus would send 
his son, with a band of hunters and a pack of dogs, 
to help them destroy the common enemy. Croesus 
consented immediately to send the dogs and the men, 
but he said that he could not send his son. " My 
son," he added, "has been lately married, and his 
time and attention are employed about other things." 

When, however, Atys himself heard of this reply, 
he remonstrated very earnestly against it, and begged 
his father to allow him to go. "What will the 
world think of me," said he, " if I shut myself up to 
these effeminate pursuits and enjoyments, and shun 



B.C. 545] CRCESUS 107 

those dangers and toils which other men consider it 
their highest honor to share ? What will my fellow- 
citizens think of me, and how shall I appear in the 
eyes of my wife ? She will despise me." 

Croesus then explained to his son the reason why 
he had been so careful to avoid exposing him to 
danger. He related to him the dream which had 
alarmed him. "It is on that account," said he, 
"that I am so anxious about you. You are, in fact, 
my only son, for your speechless brother can never 
be my heir." 

Atys said, in reply, that he was not surprised, 
under those circumstances, at his father's anxiety; 
but he maintained that this was a case to which his 
caution could not properly apply. "You dreamed," 
he said, "that I should be killed by a weapon 
pointed with iron; but a boar has no such weapon. 
If the dream had portended that I was to perish by 
a tusk or a tooth, you might reasonably have re- 
strained me from going to hunt a wild beast; but iron- 
pointed instruments are the weapons of men, and we 
are not going, in this expedition, to contend with men." 

The king, partly convinced, perhaps, by the argu- 
ments which Atys offered, and partly overborne by 
the urgency of his request, finally consented to his 
request and allowed him to go. He consigned him, 
however, to the special care of Adrastus, who was 
likewise to accompany the expedition, charging 



io8 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 54$ 

Adrastus to keep constantly by his side, and to watch 
dver him with the utmost vigilance and fidelity. 

The band of huntsmen was organized, the dogs 
prepared, and the train departed. Very soon after- 
ward, a messenger came back from the hunting 
ground, breathless, and with a countenance of ex- 
treme concern and terror, bringing the dreadful ti- 
dings that Atys was dead. Adrastus himself had killed 
him. In the ardor of the chase, while the huntsmen 
had surrounded the boar, and were each intent on 
his own personal danger while in close combat with 
such a monster, and all were hurling darts and jave- 
lins at their ferocious foe, the spear of Adrastus 
missed its aim, and entered the body of the unhappy 
prince. He bled to death on the spot. 

Soon after the messenger had made known these 
terrible tidings, the hunting train, transformed now 
into a funeral procession, appeared, bearing the dead 
body of the king's son, and followed by the wretched 
Adrastus himself, who was wringing his hands, and 
crying out incessantly in accents and exclamations of 
despair. He begged the king to kill him at once, 
over the body of his son, and thus put an end to the 
unutterable agony that he endured. This second 
calamity was more, he said, than he could bear. He 
had killed before his own brother, and now he had 
murdered the son of his greatest benefactor and 
friend. 



B.C. 545] CRCESUS 109 

Croesus, though overwhelmed with anguish, was 
disarmed of all resentment at witnessing Adrastus's 
suffering. He endeavored to soothe and quiet the 
agitation which the unhappy man endured, but it was 
in vain. Adrastus could not be calmed. Croesus then 
ordered the body of his son to be buried with proper 
honors. The funeral services were performed with 
great and solemn ceremonies, and when the body 
was interred, the household of Croesus returned to the 
palace, which was now, in spite of all its splendor, 
shrouded in gloom. That night — at midnight — 
Adrastus, finding his mental anguish insupportable, 
retired from his apartment to the place where Atys 
had been buried, and killed himself over the grave. 

Solon was wise in saying that he could not tell 
whether wealth and grandeur were to be accounted 
as happiness till he saw how they would end. Croe- 
sus was plunged into inconsolable grief, and into ex- 
treme dejection and misery for a period of two years, 
in consequence of this calamity, and yet this calamity 
was only the beginning of the end. 




CHAPTER V. 

Accession of Cyrus to the Throne. 

Change in the character of Cyrus. — His ambition. — Capriciousness of Asty- 
ages. — Cyrus makes great progress in mental and personal accomplish- 
ments. — Harpagus's plans for revenge. — Suspicions of Astyages. — Con- 
dition of Persia. — Discontent in Media. — Proceedings of Harpagus. — 
His deportment toward Astyages. — Co-operation in Media. — Harpagus 
writes to Cyrus. — Harpagus's singular method of conveying his letter to 
Cyrus. — Contents of Harpagus's letter. — Excitement of Cyrus. — Cyrus 
accedes to Harpagus's plan. — How to raise an army. — The day of toil. — 
The day of festivity.— Speech of Cyrus. — Ardor of the soldiers. — Defec- 
tion of Harpagus. — The battle. — Rage of Astyages. — His vengeance on 
the magi. — Defeat and capture of Astyages.— Interview with Harpagus. 
— Cyrus King of Media and Persia.— Confinement of Astyages. — Acqui- 
escence of the Medes. — Death of Astyages. — Suddenness of Cyrus's ele- 
vation.— Harpagus. 

While Croesus had thus, on his side of the 
River Halys — which was the stream that 
marked the boundary between the Lydian 
empire on the west and the Persian and Assyrian do- 
minions on the east — been employed in building up 
his grand structure of outward magnificence and 
splendor, and in contending, within, against an over- 
whelming tide of domestic misery and woe, great 
changes had taken place in the situation and pros- 
pects of Cyrus. From being an artless and generous- 
minded child, he had become a calculating, ambitious, 
and aspiring man, and he was preparing to take his 
(no) 



B.C. 560] ACCESSION in 

part in the great public contests and struggles of the 
day, with the same eagerness for self-aggrandizement, 
and the same unconcern for the welfare and happi- 
ness of others, which always characterizes the spirit 
of ambition and love of power. 

Although it is by no means certain that what 
Xenophon relates of his visit to his grandfather Asty- 
ages is meant for a true narrative of facts, it is not 
at all improbable that such a visit might have been 
made, and that occurrences, somewhat similar, at 
least, to those which his narrative records, may have 
taken place. It may seem strange to the reader that 
a man who should, at one time, wish to put his 
grandchild to death, should, at another, be disposed 
to treat him with such a profusion of kindness and 
attention. There is nothing, however, really extraor- 
dinary in this. Nothing is more fluctuating than 
the caprice of a despot. Man, accustomed from in- 
fancy to govern those around him by his own impet- 
uous will, never learns self-control. He gives himself 
up to the dominion of the passing animal emotions of 
the hour. It may be jealousy, it may be revenge, it 
may be parental fondness, it may be hate, it may be 
love — whatever the feeling is that the various inci- 
dents of life, as they occur, or the influences, irrita- 
ting or exhilarating, which are produced by food or 
wine, awaken in his mind, he follows its impulse 
blindly and without reserve. He loads a favorite with 



ii2 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 560 

kindness and caresses at one hour, and directs his 
assassination the next. He imagines that his infant 
grandchild is to become his rival, and he deliberately 
orders him to be left in a gloomy forest alone, to die 
of cold and hunger. When the imaginary danger has 
passed away, he seeks amusement in making the 
same grandchild his plaything, and overwhelms him 
with favors bestowed solely for the gratification of the 
giver, under the influence of an affection almost as 
purely animal as that of a lioness for her young. 

Favors of such a sort can awaken no permanent 
gratitude in any heart, and thus it is quite possible 
that Cyrus might have evinced, during the simple and 
guileless days of his childhood, a deep veneration and 
affection for his grandfather, and yet, in subsequent 
years, when he had arrived at full maturity, have 
learned to regard him simply in the light of a great 
political potentate, as likely as any other potentate 
around him to become his rival or his enemy. 

This was, at all events, the result. Cyrus, on his 
return to Persia, grew rapidly in strength and stature, 
and soon became highly distinguished for his personal 
grace, his winning manners, and for the various mar- 
tial accomplishments which he had acquired in Media, 
and in which he excelled almost all his companions. 
He gained, as such princes always do, a vast ascend- 
ency over the minds of all around him. As he ad- 
vanced toward maturity, his mind passed from its 



B.C. 560] ACCESSION 113 

interest in games, and hunting, and athletic sports, to 
plans of war, of conquest, and of extended dominion. 

In the mean time, Harpagus, though he had, at 
the time when he endured the horrible punishment 
which Astyages inflicted upon him, expressed no re- 
sentment, still he had secretly felt an extreme indig- 
nation and anger, and he had now, for fifteen years, 
been nourishing covert schemes and plans for revenge. 
He remained all this time in the court of Astyages, 
and was apparently his friend. He was, however, 
in heart a most bitter and implacable enemy. He 
was looking continually for a plan or prospect which 
should promise some hope of affording him his long- 
desired revenge. His eyes were naturally turned to- 
ward Cyrus. He kept up a communication with him 
so far as it was possible, for Astyages watched very 
closely what passed between the two countries, being 
always suspicious of plots against his government 
and crown. Harpagus, however, contrived to evade 
this vigilance in some degree. He made continual 
reports to Cyrus of the tyranny and misgovernment 
of Astyages, and of the defenselessness of the realm 
of Media, and he endeavored to stimulate his rising 
ambition to the desire of one day possessing for him- 
self both the Median and Persian thrones. 

In fact, Persia was not then independent of Media. 
It was more or less connected with the government 
of Astyages, so that Cambyses, the chief ruler of Per- 

M. ofH.— 11— 8 



ii 4 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 560 

sia, Cyrus's father, is called sometimes a king and 
sometimes a satrap, which last title is equivalent to 
that of viceroy or governor general. Whatever his 
true and proper title may have been, Persia was a 
Median dependency, and Cyrus, therefore, in forming 
plans for gaining possession of the Median throne, 
would consider himself as rather endeavoring to rise 
to the supreme command in his own native country, 
than as projecting any scheme for foreign conquest. 

Harpagus, too, looked upon the subject in the 
same light. Accordingly, in pushing forward his 
plots toward their execution, he operated in Media as 
well as Persia. He ascertained, by diligent and saga- 
cious, but by very covert inquiries, who were dis- 
contented and ill at ease under the dominion of 
Astyages, and by sympathizing with and encouraging 
them, he increased their discontent and insubmission 
Whenever Astyages, in the exercise of his tyranny, 
inflicted an injury upon a powerful subject, Harpagus 
espoused the cause of the injured man, condemned, 
with him, the intolerable oppression of the king, and 
thus fixed and perpetuated his enmity. At the same 
time, he took pains to collect and to disseminate 
among the Medes all the information which he could 
obtain favorable to Cyrus, in respect to his talents, 
his character, and his just and generous spirit, so 
that, at length, the ascendency of Astyages, through 
the instrumentality of these measures, was very ex- 



B.C. 560] ACCESSION 115 

tensively undermined, and the way was rapidly be- 
coming prepared for Cyrus's accession to power. 

During all this time, moreover, Harpagus was per- 
sonally very deferential and obsequious to Astyages, 
and professed an unbounded devotedness to his inter- 
ests. He maintained a high rank at court and in the 
army, and Astyages relied upon him as one of the 
most obedient and submissive of his servants, without 
entertaining any suspicion whatever of his true designs. 

At length a favorable occasion arose, as Harpagus 
thought, for the execution of his plans. It was at a 
time when Astyages had been guilty of some unusual 
acts of tyranny and oppression, by which he had 
produced extensive dissatisfaction among his people. 
Harpagus communicated, very cautiously, to the prin- 
cipal men around him, the designs that he had long 
been forming for deposing Astyages and elevating 
Cyrus in his place. He found them favorably inclined 
to the plan. The way being thus prepared, the next 
thing was to contrive some secret way of communi- 
cating with Cyrus. As the proposal which he was 
going to make was that Cyrus should come into 
Media with as great a force as he could command, 
and head an insurrection against the government of 
Astyages, it would, of course, be death to him to 
have it discovered. He did not dare to trust the 
message to any living messenger, for fear of betrayal; 
nor was it safe to send a. letter by any ordinary mode 



u6 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 560 

of transmission, lest the letter should be intercepted 
by some of Astyages's spies, and thus the whole plot 
be discovered. He finally adopted the following very 
extraordinary plan: 

He wrote a letter to Cyrus, and then taking a 
hare, which some of his huntsmen had caught for 
him, he opened the body and concealed the letter 
within. He then sewed up the skin again in the 
most careful manner, so that no signs of the incision 
should remain. He delivered this hare, together with 
some nets and other hunting apparatus, to certain 
trustworthy servants, on whom he thought he could 
rely, charging them to deliver the hare into Cyrus's 
own hands, and to say that it came from Harpagus, 
and that it was the request of Harpagus that Cyrus 
should open it himself and alone. Harpagus con- 
cluded that this mode of making the communica- 
tion was safe; for, in case the persons to whom the 
hare was intrusted were to be seen by any of the 
spies or other persons employed by Astyages on the 
frontiers, they would consider them as hunters return- 
ing from the chase with their game, and would never 
think of examining the body of a hare, in the hands 
of such a party, in search after a clandestine corre- 
spondence. 

The plan was perfectly successful. The men 
passed into Persia without any suspicion. They de- 



B.C. 560] ACCESSION 117 

livered the hare to Cyrus, with their message. He 
opened the hare, and found the letter. It was in 
substance as follows: 

"It is plain, Cyrus, that you are a favorite of 
Heaven, and that you are destined to a great and 
glorious career. You could not otherwise have 
escaped, in so miraculous a manner, the snares set for 
you in your infancy. Astyages meditated your death, 
and he took such measures to effect it as would 
seem to have made your destruction sure. You were 
saved by the special interposition of Heaven. You 
are aware by what extraordinary incidents you were 
preserved and discovered, and what great and un- 
usual prosperity has since attended you. You know, 
too, what cruel punishments Astyages inflicted upon 
me, for my humanity in saving you. The time has 
now come for retribution. From this time the au- 
thority and the dominions of Astyages may be yours. 
Persuade the Persians to revolt. Put yourself at the 
head of an army and march into Media. I shall 
probably myself be appointed to command the army 
sent out to oppose you. If so, we will join our 
forces when we meet, and I will enter your service. 
I have conferred with the leading nobles in Media, 
and they are all ready to espouse your cause. You 
may rely upon finding every thing thus prepared for 
you here; come, therefore, without delay." 



n8 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 560 

Cyrus was thrown into a fever of excitement and 
agitation on reading this letter. He determined to ac- 
cede to Harpagus's proposal. He revolved in his 
mind for some time the measures by which he could 
raise the necessary force. Of course he could not 
openly announce his plan and enlist an army to effect 
it, for any avowed and public movement of that kind 
would be immediately made known to Astyages, who, 
by being thus forewarned of his enemies' designs, 
might take effectual measures to circumvent them. 
He determined to resort to deceit, or, as he called it, 
stratagem ; nor did he probably have any distinct per- 
ception of the wrongfulness of such a mode of pro- 
ceeding. The demon of war upholds and justifies 
falsehood and treachery, in all its forms, on the part 
of his votaries. He always applauds a forgery, a 
false pretense, or a lie: he calls it a stratagem. 

Cyrus had a letter prepared, in the form of a com- 
mission from Astyages, appointing him commander 
of a body of Persian forces to be raised for the serv- 
ice of the king. Cyrus read the fabricated document 
in the public assembly of the Persians, and called 
upon all the warriors to join him. When they were 
organized, he ordered them to assemble on a certain 
day, at a place that he named, each one provided 
with a woodman's ax. When they were thus mus- 
tered, he marched them into a forest, and set them 
at work to clear a piece of ground. The army toiled 



B.C. 560] ACCESSION 119 

all day, felling the trees, and piling them up to be 
burned. They cleared in this way, as Herodotus 
states, a piece of ground eighteen or twenty furlongs 
in extent. Cyrus kept them thus engaged in severe 
and incessant toil all the day, giving them, too, only 
coarse food and little rest. At night he dismissed 
them, commanding them to assemble again the sec- 
ond day. 

On the second day, when they came together, 
they found a great banquet prepared for them, and 
Cyrus directed them to devote the day to feasting 
and making merry. There was an abundance of 
meats of all kinds, and rich wines in great profusion. 
The soldiers gave themselves up for the whole day 
to merriment and revelry. The toils and the hard fare 
of the day before had prepared them very effectually 
to enjoy the rest and the luxuries of this festival. 
They spent the hours in feasting about their camp- 
fires and reclining on the grass, where they amused 
themselves and one another by relating tales, or join- 
ing in merry songs and dances. At last, in the even- 
ing, Cyrus called them together, and asked them 
which day they had liked the best. They replied 
that there was nothing at all to like in the one, and 
nothing to be disliked in the other. They had had, 
on the first day, hard work and bad fare, and on the 
second, uninterrupted ease and the most luxurious 
pleasures. 



120 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 560 

"It is indeed so," said Cyrus, "and you have 
your destiny in your own hands to make your lives 
pass like either of these days, just as you choose. If 
you will follow me, you will enjoy ease, abundance, 
and luxury. If you refuse, you must remain as you 
are, and toil on as you do now, and endure your 
present privations and hardships to the end of your 
days." He then explained to them his designs. He 
told them that although Media was a great and 
powerful kingdom, still that they were as good soldiers 
as the Medes, and with the arrangements and prep- 
arations which he had made, they were sure of 
victory. 

The soldiers received this proposal with great en- 
thusiasm and joy. They declared themselves ready to 
follow Cyrus wherever he should lead them, and the 
whole body immediately commenced making prepara- 
tions for the expedition. Astyages was, of course, 
soon informed of these proceedings. He sent an order 
to Cyrus, summoning him immediately into his pres- 
ence. Cyrus sent back word, in reply, that Astyages 
would probably see him sooner than he wished, and 
went on vigorously with his preparations. When all 
was ready, the army marched, and, crossing the 
frontiers, they entered into Media. 

In the mean time, Astyages had collected a large 
force, and, as had been anticipated by the conspira- 
tors, he put it under the command of Harpagus. 



B.C. 560] ACCESSION 121 

Harpagus made known his design of going over to 
Cyrus as soon as he should meet him, to as large a 
portion of the army as he thought it prudent to admit 
to his confidence; the rest know nothing of the plan; 
and thus the Median army advanced to meet the 
invaders, a part of the troops with minds intent on 
resolutely meeting and repelling their enemies, while 
the rest were secretly preparing to go over at once to 
their side. 

When the battle was joined, the honest part of the 
Median army fought valiantly at first, but soon, thun- 
derstruck and utterly confounded at seeing themselves 
abandoned and betrayed by a large body of their com- 
rades, they were easily overpowered by the triumphant 
Persians. Some were taken prisoners; some fled back 
to Astyages; and others, following the example of the 
deserters, went over to Cyrus's camp and swelled the 
numbers of his train. Cyrus, thus re-enforced by 
the accessions he had received, and encouraged by 
the flight or dispersion of all who still wished to op- 
pose him, began to advance toward the capital. 

Astyages, when he heard of the defection of Har- 
pagus and of the discomfiture of his army, was 
thrown into a perfect phrensy of rage and hate. The 
long-dreaded prediction of his dream seemed now 
about to be fulfilled, and the magi, who had taught 
him that when Cyrus had once been made king of 
the boys in sport, there was no longer any danger 



i22 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 560 

of his aspiring to regal power, had proved themselves 
false. They had either intentionally deceived him, or 
they were ignorant themselves, and in that case they 
were worthless impostors. Although the danger from 
Cyrus's approach was imminent in the extreme, As- 
tyages could not take any measures for guarding 
against it until he had first gratified the despotic cru- 
elty of his nature by taking vengeance on these false 
pretenders. He directed to have them all seized and 
brought before him, and then, having upbraided them 
with bitter reproaches for their false predictions, he 
ordered them all to be crucified. 

He then adopted the most decisive measures for 
raising an army. He ordered every man capable of 
bearing arms to come forward, and then, putting 
himself at the head of the immense force which he 
had thus raised, he advanced to meet his enemy. He 
supposed, no doubt, that he was sure of victory; but 
he underrated the power which the discipline, the 
resolution, the concentration, and the terrible energy 
of Cyrus's troops gave to their formidable array. He 
was defeated. His army was totally cut to pieces, 
and he himself was taken prisoner. 

Harpagus was present when he was taken, and 
he exulted in revengeful triumph over the fallen ty- 
rant's ruin. Astyages was filled with rage and de- 
spair. Harpagus asked him what he thought now of 
the supper in which he had compelled a father to 



B.C. 560] ACCESSION 123 

feed on the flesh of his child. Astyages, in reply, 
asked Harpagus whether he thought that the success 
of Cyrus was owing to what he had done. Harpagus 
replied that it was, and exultingly explained to Asty- 
ages the plots he had formed, and the preparations 
which he had made for Cyrus's invasion, so that As- 
tyages might see that his destruction had been ef- 
fected by Harpagus alone, in terrible retribution for 
the atrocious crime which he had committed so many 
years before, and for which the vengeance of the suf- 
ferer had slumbered, during the long interval, only to 
be more complete and overwhelming at last. 

Astyages told Harpagus that he was a miserable 
wretch, the most foolish and most wicked of man- 
kind. He was the most foolish, for having plotted to 
put power into another's hands which it would have 
been just as easy for him to have secured and re- 
tained in his own; and he was the most wicked, for 
having betrayed his country, and delivered it over to 
a foreign power, merely to gratify his own private 
revenge. 

The result of this battle was the complete over- 
throw of the power and kingdom of Astyages, and 
the establishment of Cyrus on the throne of the united 
kingdom of Media and Persia. Cyrus treated his 
grandfather with kindness after his victory over him. 
He kept him confined, it is true, but it was probably 
that indirect and qualified sort of confinement which 



i2 4 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 560 

is all that is usually enforced in the case of princes 
and kings. In such cases, some extensive and often 
sumptuous residence is assigned to the illustrious pris- 
oner, with grounds sufficiently extensive to afford 
every necessary range for recreation and exercise, and 
with bodies of troops for keepers, which have much 
more the form and appearance of military guards of 
honor attending on a prince, than of jailers confining 
a prisoner. It was probably in such an imprisonment 
as this that Astyages passed the remainder of his days. 
The people, having been wearied with his despotic 
tyranny, rejoiced in his downfall, and acquiesced very 
readily in the milder and more equitable government 
of Cyrus. 

Astyages came to his death many years afterward, 
in a somewhat remarkable manner. Cyrus sent for 
him to come into Persia, where he was himself then 
residing. The officer who had Astyages in charge, 
conducted him, on the way, into a desolate wilder- 
ness, where he perished of fatigue, exposure, and 
hunger. It was supposed that this was done in obedi- 
ence to secret orders from Cyrus, who perhaps found 
the charge of such a prisoner a burden. The officer, 
however, was cruelly punished for the act; but even 
this may have been only for appearances, to divert 
the minds of men from all suspicion that Cyrus could 
himself have been an accomplice in such a crime. 

The whole revolution which has been described in 



B.C. 560] ACCESSION 125 

this chapter, from its first inception to its final ac- 
complishment, was effected in a very short period of 
time, and Cyrus thus found himself very unexpectedly 
and suddenly elevated to a throne. 

Harpagus continued in his service, and became 
subsequently one of his most celebrated generals. 




CHAPTER VI. 

The Oracles. 

Plans of Croesus. — The River Halys. — Nature of the oracles. — Situation of 
Delphi. — The gaseous vapor. — The priestess.— The sacred tripod.— The 
oracle of Dodona. — The two black doves. — The priestesses of Dodona. — 
Manner of obtaining responses.— The great brazen caldron. — The Oasis 
of Jupiter Amnion. — Discovery of the Oasis of Jupiter Ammon. — Other 
oracles. — Mode of consulting the oracle. — Mystic ceremonies. — Croesus 
puts the oracles to the test. — Manner of doing it.— Return of the messen- 
gers. — The replies. — Croesus decides in favor of Delphi. — His costly gifts. 

— The silver tank. — The golden lion. — The bread-maker. — Her history. 

— The oracle questioned. — The response. — Delight of Croesus. — Supple- 
mentary inquiry. — Croesus's feeling of security. — Nature of the oracles. 

— Means by which the credit of the oracles was sustained. — Whether the 
priests were impostors. — Answers to the oracles. — Collusion between the 
priests and those who consulted the oracle. — Is there any revelation 
truly divine ? 

As soon as Cyrus had become established on his 
throne as King of the Medes and Persians, 
his influence and power began to extend 
westward toward the confines of the empire of Croe- 
sus, King of Lydia. Crcesus was aroused from the 
dejection and stupor into which the death of his son 
had plunged him, as related in a former chapter, by 
this threatening danger. He began to consider very 
earnestly what he could do to avert it. 

The River Halys, a great river of Asia Minor, which 
flows northward into the Black Sea, was the eastern 
(126) 



B.C. 547] THE ORACLES 127 

boundary of the Lydian empire. Croesus began to 
entertain the design of raising an army and crossing 
the Halys, to invade the empire of Cyrus, thinking 
that that would perhaps be safer policy than to wait 
for Cyrus to cross the Halys, and bring the war upon 
him. Still, the enterprise of invading Persia was a 
vast undertaking, and the responsibility great of being 
the aggressor in the contest. After carefully consider- 
ing the subject in all its aspects, Croesus found him- 
self still perplexed and undecided. 

The Greeks had a method of looking into futurity, 
and of ascertaining, as they imagined, by supernatu- 
ral means, the course of future events, which was 
peculiar to that people; at least no other nation seems 
ever to have practiced it in the precise form which pre- 
vailed among them. It was by means of the oracles. 
There were four or five localities in the Grecian 
countries which possessed, as the people thought, the 
property of inspiring persons who visited them, or of 
giving to some natural object certain supernatural 
powers by which future events could be foretold. 
The three most important of these oracles were situ- 
ated respectively at Delphi, at Dodona, and at the 
Oasis of Jupiter Ammon. 

Delphi was a small' town built in a sort of valley, 
shaped like an amphitheater, on the southern side of 
Mount Parnassus. Mount Parnassus is north of the 
Peloponnesus, not very far from the shores of the 



128 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 547 

Gulf of Corinth. Delphi was in a picturesque and 
romantic situation, with the mountain behind it, ( and 
steep, precipitous rocks descending to the level coun- 
try before. These precipices answered instead of 
walls to defend the temple and the town. In very 
early times a cavern or fissure in the rocks was 
discovered at Delphi, from which there issued a 
stream of gaseous vapor, which produced strange 
effects on those who inhaled it. It was supposed to 
inspire them. People resorted to the place to obtain 
the benefit of these inspirations, and of the knowl- 
edge which they imagined they could obtain by 
means of them. Finally, a temple was built, and a 
priestess resided constantly in it, to inhale the vapor 
and give the responses. When she gave her answers 
to those who came to consult the oracle, she sat 
upon a sort of three-legged stool, which was called the 
sacred tripod. These stools were greatly celebrated 
as a very important part of the sacred apparatus of 
the place. This oracle became at last so renowned, 
that the greatest potentates, and even kings, came 
from great distances to consult it, and they made 
very rich and costly presents at the shrine when, they 
came. These presents, it was supposed, tended to 
induce the god who presided over the oracle to give 
to those who made them favorable and auspicious 
replies. The deity that dictated the predictions of 
this oracle was Apollo. 



B.C. 547] THE ORACLES 129 

There was another circumstance, besides the exist- 
ence of the cave, which signalized the locality where 
this oracle was situated. The people believed that 
this spot was the exact center of the earth, which of 
course they considered as one vast plain. There was 
an ancient story that Jupiter, in order to determine 
the central point of creation, liberated two eagles at 
the same time, in opposite quarters of the heavens, 
that they might fly toward one another, and so mark 
the middle point by the place of their meeting. They 
met at Delphi. 

Another of the most celebrated oracles was at Do- 
dona. Dodona was northwest of Delphi, in the Epi- 
rus, which was a country in the western part of what 
is now Turkey in Europe, and on the shores of the 
Adriatic Sea. The origin of the oracle at Dodona was, 
as the priestess there told Herodotus, as follows: In 
very ancient times, two black doves wer,e set at lib- 
erty in Thebes, which was a very venerable and sa- 
cred city of Egypt. One flew toward the north and 
the other toward the west. The former crossed the 
Mediterranean, and then continued its flight over the 
Peloponnesus, and over all the southern provinces of 
Greece, until it reached Dodona. There it alighted 
on a beech-tree, and said, in a human voice, that that 
spot was divinely appointed for the seat of a sacred 
oracle. The other dove flew to the Oasis of Jupiter 
Ammon. 

M. ofH.— 11— 9 



i 3 o CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 547 

There were three priestesses at Dodona in the 
days of Herodotus. Their names were Promenea, 
Timarete, and Nicandre. The answers of the oracle 
were, for a time, obtained by the priestesses from 
some appearances which they observed in the sacred 
beech on which the dove alighted, when the tree was 
agitated by the wind. In later times, however, the 
responses were obtained in a still more singular man- 
ner. There was a brazen statue of a man, holding a 
whip in his hand. The whip had three lashes, which 
were formed of brazen chains. At the end of each 
chain was an astragalus, as it was called, which was 
a row of little knots or knobs, such as were com- 
monly appended to the lashes of whips used in those 
days for scourging criminals. 

These heavy lashes hung suspended in the hand 
of the statue over a great brazen caldron, in such a 
manner that the wind would impel them, from time 
to time, against its sides, causing the caldron to ring 
and resound like a gong. There was, however, 
something in this resonance supernatural and divine; 
for, though it was not loud, it was very long con- 
tinued, when once the margin of the caldron was 
touched, however gently, by the lashes. In fact, it 
was commonly said that if touched in the morning, it 
would be night before the reverberations would have 
died entirely away. Such a belief could be very eas- 
ily sustained among the common people; for a large, 



B.C. 547] THE ORACLES 131 

open-mouthed vessel like the Dodona caldron, with 
thin sides formed of sonorous metal, might be kept in 
a state of continual vibration by the wind alone. 

They who wished to consult this oracle came with 
rich presents both for the priestesses and for the 
shrine, and when they had made the offerings, and 
performed the preliminary ceremonies required, they 
propounded their questions to the priestesses, who 
obtained the replies by interpreting, according to cer- 
tain rules which they had formed, the sounds emitted 
by the mysterious gong. 

The second black dove which took its flight from 
Thebes alighted, as we have already said, in the Oasis 
of Jupiter Ammon. This oasis was a small fertile 
spot in the midst of the deserts of Africa, west of 
Egypt, about a hundred miles from the Nile, and 
somewhat nearer than that to the Mediterranean Sea. 
It was first discovered in the following manner: A 
certain king was marching across the deserts, and his 
army, having exhausted their supplies of water, were 
on the point of perishing with thirst, when a ram 
mysteriously appeared, and took a position before 
them as their guide. They followed him, and at 
length came suddenly upon a green and fertile valley, 
many miles in length. The ram conducted them into 
this valley, and then suddenly vanished, and a copious 
fountain of water sprung up in the place where he 
had stood. The king, in gratitude for this divine in- 



132 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 547 

terposition, consecrated the spot and built a temple 
upon it, which was called the temple of Jupiter Am- 
nion. The dove alighted here, and ever afterward 
the oracles delivered by the priests of this temple 
were considered as divinely inspired. 

These three were the most important oracles. 
There were, however, many others of subordinate 
consequence, each of which had its own peculiar 
ceremonies, all senseless and absurd. At one there 
was a sort of oven-shaped cave in the rocks, the 
spot being inclosed by an artificial wall. The cave 
was about six feet wide and eight feet deep. The 
descent into it was by a ladder. Previously to con- 
sulting this oracle certain ceremonies were necessary, 
which it required several days to perform. The ap- 
plicant was to offer sacrifices to many different dei- 
ties, and to purify himself in various ways. He was 
then conducted to a stream in the neighborhood of 
the oracle, where he was to be anointed and washed. 
Then he drank a certain magical water, called the 
water of forgetfulness, which made him forget all 
previous sorrows and cares. Afterward he drank of 
another enchanted cup, which contained the water of 
remembrance; this was to make him remember all 
that should be communicated to him in the cave. 
He then descended the ladder, and received within 
the cave the responses of the oracle. 



B.C. 547] THE ORACLES 133 

At another of these oracles, which was situated in 
Attica, the magic virtue was supposed to reside in a 
certain marble statue, carved in honor of an ancient 
and celebrated prophet, and placed in a temple. 
Whoever wished to consult this oracle must abstain 
from wine for three days, and from food of every 
kind for twenty-four hours preceding the application. 
He was then to offer a ram as a sacrifice; and after- 
ward, taking the skin of the ram from the carcass, he 
was to spread it out before the statue and lie down 
upon it to sleep. The answers of the oracle came to 
him in his dreams. 

But to return to Croesus. He wished to ascertain, 
by consulting some of these oracles, what the result 
of his proposed invasion of the dominions of Cyrus 
would be, in case he should undertake it; and in or- 
der to determine which of the various oracles were 
most worthy of reliance, he conceived the plan of 
putting them all to a preliminary test. He effected 
this object in the following manner: 

He dispatched a number of messengers from Sar- 
dis, his capital, sending one to each of the various 
oracles. He directed these messengers to make their 
several journeys with all convenient dispatch; but, in 
order to provide for any cases of accidental detention 
or delay, he allowed them all one hundred days to 



i 3 4 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 547 

reach their several places of destination. On the hun- 
dredth day from the time of their leaving Sardis, they 
were all to make applications to the oracles, and in- 
quire what Croesus, King of Lydia, was doing at that 
time. Of course he did not tell them what he should 
be doing; and as the oracles themselves could not 
possibly know how he was employed by any human 
powers, their answers would seem to test the validity 
of their claims to powers divine. 

Croesus kept the reckoning of the days himself 
with great care, and at the hour appointed on the 
hundredth day, he employed himself in boiling the 
flesh of a turtle and of a lamb together in a brazen ves- 
sel. The vessel was covered with a lid, which was 
also of brass. He then awaited the return of the 
messengers. They came in due time, one after an- 
other, bringing the replies which they had severally 
obtained. The replies were all unsatisfactory, except 
that of the oracle at Delphi. This answer was in 
verse, as, in fact, the responses of that oracle always 
were. The priestess who sat upon the tripod was 
accustomed to give the replies in an incoherent and 
half-intelligible manner, as impostors are very apt to 
do in uttering prophecies, and then the attendant 
priests and secretaries wrote them out in verse. 

The verse which the messenger brought back from 
the Delphic tripod was in Greek; but some idea of 



B.C. 547] THE ORACLES 135 

its style, and the import of it, is conveyed by the fol- 
lowing imitation: 

" I number the sands, I measure the sea, 
What's hidden to others is known to me. 
The lamb and the turtle are simmering slow, 
With brass above them and brass below." 

Of course, Croesus decided that the Delphic oracle 
was the one that he must rely upon for guidance in 
respect to his projected campaign. And he now be- 
gan to prepare to consult it in a manner corresponding 
with the vast importance of the subject, and with his 
own boundless wealth. He provided the most extraor- 
dinary and sumptuous presents. Some of these treas- 
ures were to be deposited in the temple, as sacred 
gifts, for permanent preservation there. Others were 
to be offered as a burnt sacrifice in honor of the god. 
Among the latter, besides an incredible number of 
living victims, he caused to be prepared a great num- 
ber of couches, magnificently decorated with silver 
and gold, and goblets and other vessels of gold, and 
dresses of various kinds richly embroidered, and nu- 
merous other articles, all intended to be used in the 
ceremonies preliminary to his application to the ora- 
cle. When the time arrived, a vast concourse of 
people assembled to witness the spectacle. The ani- 
mals were sacrificed, and the people feasted on the 
flesh; and when these ceremonies were concluded, 
the couches, the goblets, the utensils of every kind, 



136 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 547 

the dresses — every thing, in short, which had been 
used on the occasion, were heaped up into one great 
sacrificial pile, and set on fire. Every thing that was 
combustible was consumed, while the gold was melted, 
and ran into plates of great size, which were after- 
ward taken out from the ashes. Thus it was the 
workmanship only of these articles which was des- 
troyed and lost by the fire. The gold, in which the 
chief value consisted, was saved. It was gold from 
the Pactolus. 

Besides these articles, there were others made, far 
more magnificent and costly, for the temple itself. 
There was a silver cistern or tank, large enough to 
hold three thousand gallons of wine. This tank was 
to be used by the inhabitants of Delphi in their great 
festivals. There was also a smaller cistern, or im- 
mense goblet, as it might, perhaps, more properly be 
called, which was made of gold. There were also 
many other smaller presents, such as basins, vases, 
and statues, all of silver and gold, and of the most 
costly workmanship. The gold, too, which had been 
taken from the fire, was cast again, a part of it being 
formed into the image of a lion, and the rest into 
large plates of metal for the lion to stand upon. The 
image was then set up upon the plates, within the 
precincts of the temple. 

There was one piece of statuary which Croesus 
presented to the oracle at Delphi, which was, in some 



B.C. 547] THE ORACLES 137 

respects, more extraordinary than any of the rest. It 
was called the bread-maker. It was an image repre- 
senting a woman, a servant in the household of 
Croesus, whose business it was to bake the bread. 
The reason that induced Croesus to honor this bread- 
maker with a statue of gold was, that on one oc- 
casion during his childhood she had saved his life. 
The mother of Croesus died when he was young, and 
his father married a second time. The second wife 
wished to have some one of her children, instead of 
Croesus, succeed to her husband's throne. In order, 
therefore, to remove Croesus out of the way, she pre- 
pared some poison and gave it to the bread-maker, 
instructing her to put it into the bread which Croesus 
was to eat. The bread-maker received the poison 
and promised to obey. But, instead of doing so, she 
revealed the intended murder to Croesus, and gave the 
poison to the queen's own children. In gratitude for 
this fidelity to him, Croesus, when he came to the 
throne, caused this statue to be made, and now he 
placed it at Delphi, where he supposed it would for- 
ever remain. The memory of his faithful servant was 
indeed immortalized by the measure, though the statue 
itself, as well as all these other treasures, in process 
of time disappeared. In fact, statues of brass or of 
marble generally make far more durable monuments 
than statues of gold; and no structure or object of art 
is likely to be very permanent among mankind un- 



138 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 547 

less the workmanship is worth more than the ma- 
terial. 

Croesus did not proceed himself to Delphi with 
these presents, but sent them by the hands of trusty 
messengers, who were instructed to perform the cere- 
monies required, to offer the gifts, and then to make 
inquiries of the oracle in the following terms! 

" Croesus, the sovereign of Lydia, and of various 
other kingdoms, in return for the wisdom which has 
marked your former declarations, has sent you these 
gifts. He now furthermore desires to know whether 
it is safe for him to proceed against the Persians, and 
if so, whether it is best for him to seek the assistance 
of any allies." 

The answer was as follows: 

" If Croesus crosses the Halys, and prosecutes a 
war with Persia, a mighty empire will be overthrown. 
It will be best for him to form an alliance with the 
most powerful states of Greece." 

Croesus was extremely pleased with this response. 
He immediately resolved on undertaking the expedi- 
tion against Cyrus; and to express his gratitude for 
so favorable an answer to his questions, he sent to 
Delphi to inquire what was the number of inhabitants 



B.C. 547] THE ORACLES 139 

in the city, and, when the answer was reported to 
him, he sent a present of a sum of money to every 
one. The Delphians, in their turn, conferred special 
privileges and honors upon the Lydians and upon 
Croesus in respect to their oracle, giving them the 
precedence in all future consultations, and conferring 
upon them other marks of distinction and honor. 

At the time when Croesus sent his present to the 
inhabitants of Delphi, he took the opportunity to ad- 
dress another inquiry to the oracle, which was, whether 
his power would ever decline. The oracle replied in 
a couplet of Greek verse, similar in its style to the 
one recorded on the previous occasion. 

It was as follows: 

"Whene'er a mule shall mount upon the Median throne, 
Then, and not till then, shall great Croesus fear to lose his own.'' 

This answer pleased the king quite as much as 
the former one had done. The allusion to the con- 
tingency of a mule's reigning in Media he very nat- 
urally regarded as only a rhetorical and mystical mode 
of expressing an utter impossibility. Croesus consid- 
ered himself and the continuance of his power as 
perfectly secure. He was fully confirmed in his de- 
termination to organize his expedition without any 
delay, and to proceed immediately to the proper 
measures for obtaining the Grecian alliance and aid 
which the oracle had recommended. The plans which 



i 4 o CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 547 

he formed, and the events which resulted, will be 
described in subsequent chapters. 

In respect to these Grecian oracles, it is proper 
here to state, that there has been much discussion 
among scholars on the question how they were en- 
abled to maintain, for so long a period, so extended 
a credit among a people as intellectual and well in- 
formed as the Greeks. It was doubtless by means of 
a variety of contrivances and influences that this end 
was attained. There is a natural love of the marvel- 
ous among the humbler classes in all countries, which 
leads them to be very ready to believe in what is 
mystic and supernatural; and they accordingly exag- 
gerate and color such real incidents as occur under 
any strange or remarkable circumstances, and invest 
any unusual phenomena which they witness with a 
miraculous or supernatural interest. The cave at 
Delphi might really have emitted gases which would 
produce quite striking effects upon those who inhaled 
them ; and how easy it would be for those who wit- 
nessed these effects to imagine that some divine and 
miraculous powers must exist in the aerial current 
which produced them. The priests and priestesses, 
who inhabited the temples in which these oracles 
were contained, had, of course, a strong interest in 
keeping up the belief of their reality in the minds of 
the community; so were, in fact, all the inhabitants 
of the cities which sprung up around them. They 



B.C. 547] THE ORACLES 141 

derived their support from the visitors who frequented 
these places, and they contrived various ways for 
drawing contributions, both of money and gifts, from 
all who came. In one case there was a sacred stream 
near an oracle, where persons, on permission from 
the priests, were allowed to bathe. After the bath- 
ing, they were expected to throw pieces of money 
into the stream. What afterward, in such cases, be- 
came of the money, it is not difficult to imagine. 

Nor is it necessary to suppose that all these priests 
and priestesses were impostors. Having been trained 
up from infancy to believe that the inspirations were 
real, they would continue to look upon them as such all 
their lives. Even at the present day we shall all, if 
we closely scrutinize our mental habits, find ourselves 
continuing to take for granted, in our maturer years, 
what we inconsiderately imbibed or were erroneously 
taught in infancy, and that, often, in cases where the 
most obvious dictates of reason, or even the plain 
testimony of our senses, might show us that our no- 
tions are false. The priests and priestesses, therefore, 
who imposed on the rest of mankind, may have been 
as honestly and as deep in the delusion themselves 
as any of their dupes. 

The answers of the oracles were generally vague 
and indefinite, and susceptible of almost any interpre- 
tation, according to the result. Whenever the event 
corresponded with the prediction, or could be made to 



i 4 a CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 547 

correspond with it by the ingenuity of the commen- 
tators, the story of the coincidence would, of course, 
be every where spread abroad, becoming more striking 
and more exact at each repetition. Where there was 
a failure, it would not be direct and absolute, on ac- 
count of the vagueness and indefiniteness of the re- 
sponse and there would therefore be no interest felt in 
hearing or in circulating the story. The cases, thus, 
which would tend to establish the truth of the oracle, 
would be universally known and remembered, while 
those of a contrary bearing would be speedily forgotten. 
There is no doubt, however, that in many cases 
the responses were given in collusion with the one 
who consulted the oracle, for the purpose of deceiving 
others. For example, let us suppose that Croesus 
wished to establish strongly the credibility of the 
Delphic oracle in the minds of his countrymen, in or- 
der to encourage them to enlist in his armies, and to 
engage in the enterprise which he was contemplating 
against Cyrus with resolution and confidence; it would 
have been easy for him to have let the priestess at 
Delphi know what he was doing on the day when he 
sent to inquire, and thus himself to have directed her 
answer. Then, when his messengers returned, he 
would appeal to the answer as proof of the reality of 
the inspiration which seemed to furnish it. Alexander 
the Great certainly did, in this way, act in collusion 
with the priests at the temple of Jupiter Ammon. 



B.C. 547] THE ORACLES 143 

The fact that there have been so many and such 
successful cases of falsehood and imposture among 
mankind in respect to revelations from Heaven, is no 
indication, as some superficially suppose, that no rev- 
elation is true, but is, on the other hand, strong 
evidence to the contrary. The Author of human ex- 
istence has given no instincts in vain; and the uni- 
versal tendency of mankind to believe in the super- 
natural, to look into an unseen world, to seek, and 
to imagine that they find, revelations from Heaven, 
and to expect a continuance of existence after this 
earthly life is over, is the strongest possible natural 
evidence that there is an unseen world; that man 
may have true communications with it; that a per- 
sonal deity reigns, who approves and disapproves of 
human conduct, and that there is a future state of 
being. In this point of view, the absurd oracles of 
Greece, and the universal credence which they ob- 
tained, constitute strong evidence that there is some- 
where to be found inspiration and prophecy really 
divine. 




CHAPTER VII. 

The Conquest of Lydia. 

Reasons which induced Crcesus to invade Media. — The X,acedsemonians. — 
Embassadors to Sparta.— Preparations of Croesus. — The counsel of 
Sardaris. — The army begins to inarch. — Thales the Milesian. — Mathe- 
matical skill of Thales. — His theorems. — Ingenious plan of Thales for 
crossing the Halys. — Advance of Cyrus.— Preparations for battle. — Great 
battle at Pteria. — Undecisive result. — Crcesus returns to Sardis. — Cy- 
rus follows him. — Confusion and alarm at Sardis. — The I<ydian cav- 
alry. — Nature of cavalry. — Manner of receiving a cavalry charge. — The 
camels. — Cyrus opposes them to the cavalry. — The battle fought. — Cyrus 
victorious.— Situation of Sardis.— Its^ walls.— An ancient legend.— Cyrus 
besieges the city. — The reconnoissance. — The walls scaled. — Storming 
of the city.— Crcesus made prisoner.— The funeral pile.— Anguish and 
despair of Crcesus .— The saying of Solon.— Crcesus is saved.— He be- 
comes Cyrus's friend. — Croesus* sends his fetters to the oracle at Delphi. — 
Explanations of the priests.— Their adroitness and dexterity. 

There were, in fact, three inducements which 
combined their influence on the mind of 
Croesus, in leading him to cross the Halys, and 
invade the dominions of the Medes and Persians: 
first, he was ambitious to extend his own empire; 
secondly, he feared that if he did not attack Cyrus, 
Cyrus would himself cross the Halys and attack 
him; and, thirdly, he felt under some obligation 
to consider himself the ally of Astyages, and thus 
bound to espouse his cause, and to aid him in put- 
(144) 



B.C. 546] CONQUEST OF LYDIA 145 

ting down, if possible, the usurpation of Cyrus, and 
in recovering his throne. He felt under this obliga- 
tion because Astyages was his brother-in-law; for 
the latter had married, many years before, a daughter 
of Alyattes, who was the father of Croesus. This, as 
Croesus thought, gave him a just title to interfere be- 
tween the dethroned king and the rebel who had de- 
throned him. Under the influence of all these reasons 
combined, and encouraged by the responses of the 
oracle, he determined on attempting the invasion. 

The first measure which he adopted was to form 
an alliance with the most powerful of the states of 
Greece, as he had been directed to do by the oracle. 
After much inquiry and consideration, he concluded 
that the Lacedaemonian state was the most powerful. 
Their chief city was Sparta, in the Peloponnesus. 
They were a warlike, stern, and indomitable race of 
men, capable of bearing every possible hardship, and 
of enduring every degree of fatigue and toil, and they 
desired nothing but military glory for their reward. 
This was a species of wages which it was very easy to 
pay; much more easy to furnish than coin, even for 
Croesus, notwithstanding the abundant supplies of 
gold which he was accustomed to obtain from the 
sands of the Pactolus. 

Croesus sent embassadors to Sparta to inform the 
people of the plans which he contemplated, and to 
ask their aid. He had been instructed, he said, by the 

M. of H.— 11 — 10 



146 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 546 

oracle at Delphi, to seek the alliance of the most 
powerful of the states of Greece, and he accordingly 
made application to them. They were gratified with 
the compliment implied in selecting them, and acceded 
readily to his proposal. Besides, they were already 
on very friendly terms with Croesus; for, some years 
before, they had sent to him to procure some gold 
for a statue which they had occasion to erect, offering 
to give an equivalent for the value of it in such pro- 
ductions as their country afforded. Croesus supplied 
them with the gold that they needed, but generously 
refused to receive any return. 

In the mean time, Croesus went on, energetically, 
at Sardis, making the preparations for his campaign. 
One of his counselors, whose name was Sardaris, 
ventured, one day, strongly to dissuade him from un- 
dertaking the expedition. " You have nothing to gain 
by it," said he, "if you succeed, and every thing to 
lose if you fail. Consider what sort of people these 
Persians are whom you are going to combat. They 
live in the most rude and simple manner, without 
luxuries, without pleasures, without wealth. If you 
conquer their country, you will find nothing in it 
worth bringing away. On the other hand, if they 
conquer you, they will come like a vast band of 
plunderers into Lydia, where there is every thing to 
tempt and reward them. I counsel you to leave 
them alone, and to remain on this side the Halys, 



B.C. 546] CONQUEST OF LYDIA 147 

thankful if Cyrus will be contented to remain on the 
other." 

But Croesus was not in a mood of mind to be 
persuaded by such reasoning. 

When all things were ready, the army com- 
menced its march and moved eastward, through one 
province of Asia Minor after another, until they 
reached the Halys. This river is a considerable 
stream, which rises in the interior of the country, 
and flows northward into the Euxine Sea. The army 
encamped on the banks of it, and some plan was to 
be formed for crossing the stream. In accomplishing 
this object, Croesus was aided by a very celebrated 
engineer who accompanied his army, named Thales. 
Thales was a native of Miletus, and is generally 
called in history, Thales the Milesian. He was a 
very able mathematician and calculator, and many 
accounts remain of the discoveries and performances 
by which he acquired his renown. 

For example, in the course of his travels, he at 
one time visited Egypt, and while there, he con- 
trived a very simple way of measuring the height of 
the pyramids. He set up a pole on the plain in an 
upright position, and then measured the pole and 
also its shadow. He also measured the length of 
the shadow of the pyramid. He then calculated the 
height of the pyramid by this proportion: as the 
length of shadow of the pole is to that of the pole 



148 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 546 

itself, so is the length of the shadow of the pyramid 
to it height. 

Thales was an astronomer as well as a philoso- 
pher and engineer. He learned more exactly the true 
length of the year than it had been known before; 
and he also made some calculations of eclipses, at 
least so far as to predict the year in which they 
would happen. One eclipse which he predicted hap- 
pened to occur on the day of a great battle between 
two contending armies. It was cloudy, so that the 
combatants could not see the sun. This circum- 
stance, however, which concealed the eclipse itself, 
only made the darkness which was caused by it the 
more intense. The armies were much terrified at 
this sudden cessation of the light of day, and sup- 
posed it to be a warning from Heaven that they 
should desist from the combat. 

Thales the Milesian was the author of several of 
the geometrical theorems and demonstrations now in- 
cluded in the Elements of Euclid. The celebrated 
fifth proposition of the first book, so famous among 
all the modern nations of Europe as the great stum- 
bling block in the way of beginners in the study of 
geometry, was his. The discovery of the truth ex- 
pressed in this proposition, and of the complicated dem- 
onstration which establishes it, was certainly a much 
greater mathematical performance than the measuring 
of the altitude of the pyramids by their shadow. 



B.C. 546] CONQUEST OF LYDIA 149 

But to return to Croesus. Thales undertook the 
work of transporting the army across the river. He 
examined the banks, and found, at length, a spot 
where the land was low and level for some distance 
from the stream. He caused the army to be brought 
up to the river at this point, and to be encamped 
there, as near to the bank as possible, and in as com- 
pact a form. He then employed a vast number of 
laborers to cut a new channel for the waters, behind 
the army, leading out from the river above, and re- 
joining it again at a little distance below. When this 
channel was finished, he turned the river into its new 
course, and then the army passed without difficulty 
over the former bed of the stream. 

The Halys being thus passed, Croesus moved on in 
the direction of Media. But he soon found that he 
had not far to go to find his enemy. Cyrus had heard 
of his plans through deserters and spies, and he had 
for some time been advancing to meet him. One 
after the other of the nations through whose domin- 
ions he had passed, he had subjected to his sway, or, 
at least, brought under his influence by treaties and 
alliances, and had received from them all re-enforce- 
ments to swell the numbers of his army. One nation 
only remained — the Babylonians. They were on the 
side of Croesus. They were jealous of the growing 
power of the Medes and Persians, and had made a 
league with Croesus, promising to aid him in the war. 



i 5 o CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 546 

The other nations of the East were in alliance with 
Cyrus, and he was slowly moving on, at the head of 
an immense combined force, toward the Halys, at the 
very time when Croesus was crossing the stream. 

The scouts, therefore, that preceded the army of 
Croesus on its march, soon began to fall back into 
the camp, with intelligence that there was a large 
armed force coming on to meet them, the advancing 
columns filling all the roads, and threatening to over- 
whelm them. The scouts from the army of Cyrus 
carried back similar intelligence to him. The two 
armies accordingly halted and began to prepare for 
battle. The place of their meeting was called Pteria. 
It was in the province of Cappadocia, and toward the 
eastern part of Asia Minor. 

A great battle was fought at Pteria. It was con- 
tinued all day, and remained undecided when the sun 
went down. The combatants separated when it be- 
came dark, and each withdrew from the field. Each 
king found, it seems, that his antagonist was more 
formidable than he had imagined, and on the morn- 
ing after the battle they both seemed inclined to re- 
main in their respective encampments, without evin- 
cing any disposition to renew the contest. 

Croesus, in fact, seems to have considered that he 
was fortunate in having so far repulsed the formidable 
invasion which Cyrus had been intending for him. 
He considered Cyrus's army as repulsed, since they 



B.C. 546] CONQUEST OF LYDIA 151 

had withdrawn from the field, and showed no dispo- 
sition to return to it. He had no doubt that Cyrus 
would now go back to Media again, having found 
how well prepared Croesus had been to receive him. 
For himself, he concluded that he ought to be satis- 
fied with the advantage which he had already gained, 
as the result of one campaign, and return again to 
Sardis to recruit his army, the force of which had been 
considerably impaired by the battle, and so postpone 
the grand invasion till the next season. He accord- 
ingly set out on his return. He dispatched messen- 
gers, at the same time, to Babylon, to Sparta, to 
Egypt, and to other countries with which he was in 
alliance, informing these various nations of the great 
battle of Pteria and its results, and asking them to 
send him, early in the following spring, all the re- 
enforcements that they could command, to join him in 
the grand campaign which he was going to make the 
next season. 

He continued his march homeward without any 
interruption, sending off, from time to time, as he 
was moving through his own dominions, such por- 
tions of his troops as desired to return to their 
homes, enjoining upon them to come back to him in 
the spring. By this temporary disbanding of a por- 
tion of his army, he saved the expense of maintain- 
ing them through the winter. 

Very soon after Crcesus arrived at Sardis, the 



1 52 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 546 

whole country in the neighborhood of the capital was 
thrown into a state of universal alarm by the news 
that Cyrus was close at hand. It seems that Cyrus 
had remained in the vicinity of Pteria long enough to 
allow Croesus to return, and to give him time to dis- 
miss his troops and establish himself securely in the 
city. He then suddenly resumed his march, and came 
on toward Sardis with the utmost possible dispatch. 
Croesus, in fact, had no announcement of his ap- 
proach until he heard of his arrival. 

All was now confusion and alarm, both within 
and without the city. Croesus hastily collected all the 
forces that he could command. He sent immediately 
to the neighboring cities, summoning all the troops 
in them to hasten to the capital. He enrolled all the 
inhabitants of the city that were capable of bearing 
arms. By these means he collected, in a very short 
time, quite a formidable force, which he drew up, in 
battle array, on a great plain not far from the city, 
and there waited, with much anxiety and solicitude, 
for Cyrus to come on. 

The Lydian army was superior to that of Cyrus in 
cavalry, and as the place where the battle was to be 
fought was a plain, which was the kind of ground 
most favorable for the operations of that species of 
force, Cyrus felt some solicitude in respect to the im- 
pression which might be made by it on his army. 
Nothing is more terrible than the onset of a squadron 



B.C. 546] CONQUEST OF LYDIA 153 

of horse when charging an enemy upon the field of 
battle. They come in vast bodies, sometimes consist- 
ing of many thousands, with the speed of the wind, 
the men flourishing their sabers, and rending the air 
with the most unearthly cries, those in advance being 
driven irresistibly on by the weight and impetus of 
the masses behind. The dreadful torrent bears down 
and overwhelms every thing that attempts to resist 
its way. They trample one another and their enemies 
together promiscuously in the dust; the foremost of 
the column press on with the utmost fury, afraid 
quite as much of the headlong torrent of friends com- 
ing on behind them, as of the line of fixed and mo- 
tionless enemies who stand ready to receive them 
before. These enemies, stationed to withstand the 
charge, arrange themselves in triple or quadruple 
rows, with the shafts of their spears planted against 
the ground, and the points directed forward and up- 
ward to receive the advancing horsemen. These 
spears transfix and kill the foremost horses; but those 
that come on behind, leaping and plunging over their 
fallen companions, soon break through the lines and 
put their enemies to flight, in a scene of indescribable 
havoc and confusion. 

Croesus had large bodies of horse, while Cyrus 
had no efficient troops to oppose them. He had a 
great number of camels in the rear of his army, which 
had been employed as beasts of burden to transport 



i 5 4 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 546 

the baggage and stores of the army on their march. 
Cyrus concluded to make the experiment of opposing 
these camels to the cavalry. It is frequently said by 
the ancient historians that the horse has a natural an- 
tipathy to the camel, and can not bear either the 
smell or the sight of one, though this is not found to 
be the case at the present day. However the fact 
might have been in this respect, Cyrus determined 
to arrange the camels in his front as he advanced 
into battle. He accordingly ordered the baggage to 
be removed, and, releasing their ordinary drivers from 
the charge of them, he assigned each one to the care 
of a soldier, who was to mount him, armed with a 
spear. Even if the supposed antipathy of the horse 
for the camel did not take effect, Cyrus thought that 
their large and heavy bodies, defended by the spears 
of their riders, would afford the most effectual means 
of resistance against the shock of the Lydian squad- 
rons that he was now able to command. 

The battle commenced, and the squadrons of 
horse came on. But, as soon as they came near the 
camels, it happened that, either from the influence of 
the antipathy above referred to, or from alarm at the 
novelty of the spectacle of such huge and misshapen 
beasts, or else because of the substantial resistance 
which the camels and the spears of their riders made 
to the shock of their charge, the horses were soon 
thrown into confusion and put to flight. In fact, a 



B.C. 546] CONQUEST OF LYDIA 155 

general panic seized them, and they became totally 
unmanageable. Some threw their riders; others, seized 
with a sort of phrensy, became entirely independent 
of control. They turned, and trampled the foot sol- 
diers of their own army under foot, and threw the 
whole body into disorder. The consequence was, 
that the army of Croesus was wholly defeated; they 
fled in confusion, and crowded in vast throngs 
through the gates into the city, and fortified them- 
selves there. 

Cyrus advanced to the city, invested it closely on 
all sides, and commenced a siege. But the appear- 
ances were not very encouraging. The walls were 
lofty, thick, and strong, and the numbers within 
the city were amply sufficient to guard them. Nor 
was the prospect much more promising of being soon 
able to reduce the city by famine. The wealth of 
Croesus had enabled him to lay up almost inexhaust- 
ible stores of food and clothing, as well as treasures 
of silver and gold. He hoped, therefore, to be able 
to hold out against the besiegers until help should 
come from some of his allies. He had sent messen- 
gers to them, asking them to come to his rescue 
without any delay, before he was shut up in the city. 

The city of Sardis was built in a position naturally 
strong, and one part of the wall passed over rocky 
precipices which were considered entirely impassable. 
There was a sort of glen or rocky gorge in this 



156 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 546 

quarter, outside of the walls, down which dead bodies 
were thrown on one occasion subsequently, at a time 
when the city was besieged, and beasts and birds of 
prey fed upon them there undisturbed, so lonely was 
the place and so desolate. In fact, the walls that 
crowned these precipices were considered absolutely 
inaccessible, and were very slightly built and very 
feebly guarded. There was an ancient legend that, a 
long time before, when a certain Males was king of 
Lydia, one of his wives had a son in the form of a 
lion, whom they called Leon, and an oracle declared 
that if this Leon were carried around the walls of the 
city, it would be rendered impregnable, and should 
never be taken. They carried Leon, therefore, around, 
so far as the regular walls extended. When they 
came to this precipice of rocks, they returned, con- 
sidering that this part of the city was impregnable 
without any such ceremony. A spur or eminence 
from the mountain of Tmolus, which was behind the 
city, projected into it at this point, and there was a 
strong citadel built upon its summit. 

Cyrus continued the siege fourteen days, and then 
he determined that he must, in some way or other, 
find the means of carrying it by assault, and to do 
this he must find some place to scale the walls. He 
accordingly sent a party of horsemen around to ex- 
plore every part, offering them a large reward if they 
would find any place where an entrance could be 



B.C. 546] CONQUEST OF LYDIA 157 

effected. The horsemen made the circuit, and re- 
ported that their search had been in vain. At length 
a certain soldier, named Hyraeades, after studying for 
some time the precipices on the side which had been 
deemed inaccessible, saw a sentinel, who was sta- 
tioned on the walls above, leave his post and come 
climbing down the rocks for some distance to get his 
helmet, which had accidentally dropped down. Hy- 
raeades watched him both as he descended and as he 
returned. He reflected on this discovery, communi- 
cated it to others, and the practicability of scaling the 
rock and the walls at that point was discussed. 

In the end, the attempt was made and was suc- 
cessful. Hyraeades went up first, followed by a few 
daring spirits who were ambitious of the glory of the 
exploit. They were not at first observed from above. 
The way being thus shown, great numbers followed 
on, and so large a force succeeded in thus gaining 
an entrance that the city was taken. 

In the dreadful confusion and din of the storming 
of the city, Croesus himself had a very narrow escape 
from death. He was saved by the miraculous speak- 
ing of his deaf and dumb son — at least such is the 
story. Cyrus had given positive orders to his soldiers, 
both before the great battle on the plain and during 
the siege, that, though they might slay whomever else 
they pleased, they must not harm Croesus, but must 
take him alive. During the time of the storming of 



158 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 546 

the town, when the streets were filled with infuriated 
soldiers, those on the one side wild with the excite- 
ment of triumph, and those on the other maddened 
with rage and despair, a party, rushing along, over- 
took Croesus and his helpless son, whom the unhappy 
father, it seems, was making a desperate effort to 
save. The Persian soldiers were about to transfix 
Croesus with their spears, when the son, who had 
never spoken before, called out, "It is Croesus; do 
not kill him." The soldiers were arrested by the 
words, and saved the monarch's life. They made him 
prisoner, and bore him away to Cyrus. 

Croesus had sent, a long time before, to inquire of 
the Delphic oracle by what means the power of 
speech could be restored to his son. The answer 
was, that that was a boon which he had better not 
ask; for the day on which he should hear his son 
speak for the first time, would be the darkest and 
most unhappy day of his life. 

Cyrus had not ordered his soldiers to spare the 
life of Croesus in battle from any sentiment of human- 
ity toward him, but because he wished to have his 
case reserved for his own decision. When Croesus 
was brought to him a captive, he ordered him to be 
put in chains, and carefully guarded. As soon as 
some degree of order was restored in the city, a large 
funeral pile was erected, by his directions, in a pub- 
lic square, and Croesus was brought to the spot. 



B.C. 546] CONQUEST OF LYDIA 159 

Fourteen Lydian young men, the sons, probably, of 
the most prominent men in the state, were with him. 
The pile was large enough for them all, and they 
were placed upon it. They were all laid upon the 
wood. Croesus raised himself and looked around, 
surveying with extreme consternation and horror the 
preparations which were making for lighting the pile. 
His heart sank within him as he thought of the dread- 
ful fate that was before him. The spectators stood 
by in solemn silence, awaiting the end. Crcesus 
broke this awful pause by crying out, in a tone of 
anguish and despair, 

"Oh Solon! Solon! Solon!" 

The officers who had charge of the execution 
asked him what he meant. Cyrus, too, who was 
himself personally superintending the scene, asked 
for an explanation. Crcesus was, for a time, too 
much agitated and distracted to reply. There were 
difficulties in respect to language, too, which embar- 
rassed the conversation, as the two kings could speak 
to each other only through an interpreter. At length 
Crcesus gave an account of his interview with Solon, 
and of the sentiment which the philosopher had ex- 
pressed, that no one could decide whether a man 
was truly prosperous and happy till it was determined 
how his life was to end. Cyrus was greatly inter- 
ested in this narrative; but, in the mean time, the 
interpreting of the conversation had been slow, a con- 



160 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 546 

siderable period had elapsed, and the officers had 
lighted the fire. The pile had been made extremely 
combustible, and the fire was rapidly making its way 
through the whole mass. Cyrus eagerly ordered it 
to be extinguished. The efforts which the soldiers 
made for this purpose seemed, at first, likely to be 
fruitless; but they were aided very soon by a sudden 
shower of rain, which, coming down from the moun- 
tains, began, just at this time, to fall; and thus the 
flames were extinguished, and Croesus and the cap- 
tives saved. 

Cyrus immediately, with a fickleness very common 
among great monarchs in the treatment of both ene- 
mies and favorites, began to consider Croesus as his 
friend. He ordered him to be unbound, brought him 
near his person, and treated him with great consid- 
eration and honor. 

Croesus remained after this for a long time with 
Cyrus, and accompanied him in his subsequent cam- 
paigns. He was very much incensed at the oracle at 
Delphi for having deceived him by its false responses 
and predictions, and thus led him into the terrible 
snare into which he had fallen. He procured the fet- 
ters with which he had been chained when placed 
upon the pile, and sent them to Delphi, with orders 
that they should be thrown down upon the threshold 
of the temple — the visible symbol of his captivity 
and ruin — as a reproach to the oracle for having de- 



B.C. 546] CONQUEST OF LYDIA 161 

Iuded him and caused his destruction. In doing 
this, the messengers were to ask the oracle whether 
imposition like that which had been practiced on 
Crcesus was the kind of gratitude it evinced to one 
who had enriched it by such a profusion of offerings 
and gifts. 

To this the priests of the oracle said in reply, that 
the destruction of the Lydian dynasty had long been 
decreed by the Fates, in retribution for the guilt of 
Gyges, the founder of the line. He had murdered his 
master, and usurped the throne, without any title to 
it whatever. The judgments of Heaven had been de- 
nounced upon Gyges for this crime, to fall on himself 
or on some of his descendants. The Pythian Apollo 
at Delphi had done all in his power to postpone the 
falling of the blow until after the death of Crcesus, on 
account of the munificent benefactions which he had 
made to the oracle; but he had been unable to effect 
it: the decrees of Fate were inexorable. All that the 
oracle could do was to postpone — as it had done, it 
said, for three years — the execution of the sentence, 
and to give Crcesus warning of the evil that was im- 
pending. This had been done by announcing to him 
that his crossing the Halys would cause the destruc- 
tion of a mighty empire, meaning that of Lydia, and 
also by informing him that when he should find a 
mule upon the throne of Media he must expect to 
lose his own. Cyrus, who was descended, on the 



162 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 546 

father's side, from the Persian stock, and on the 
mother's from that of Media, was the hybrid sover- 
eign represented by the mule. 

When this answer was reported to Croesus, it is 
said that he was satisfied with the explanations, and 
admitted that the oracle was right, and that he him- 
self had been unreasonable and wrong. However 
this may be, it is certain that, among mankind at 
large, since Croesus's day, there has been a great dis- 
position to overlook whatever of criminality there 
may have been in the falsehood and imposture of the 
oracle, through admiration of the adroitness and 
dexterity which its ministers evinced in saving them- 
selves from exposure. 




CHAPTER VIII. 

The Conquest of Babylon. 

Babylon. — The River Euphrates. — Canals. — Curious boats. — Their mode of 
construction. — Primitive navigation. — Return of the boatmen. — Extent 
of Babylon. — Parks, gardens, palaces, etc. — The walls of Babylon. — 
Marvelous accounts. — The ditches. — Streets and gates. — Palace of the 
king. — Temple of Belus. — The bridge. — Sculptures. — The hanging gar- 
dens. — Construction of the gardens. — The platform and terraces. — En- 
gine for raising water. — Floral beauties. — The works of Nitocris. — Her 
canals and levees. — The bridge over the Euphrates. — The tomb over the 
queen. — Cyrus plans an attack upon Babylon. — Government of Lydia. — 
Cyrus returns eastward. — Revolt of the Lydians. — Detachment of Ma- 
zares. — Flight of Pactyas. — Pactyas at Cyme. — The people consult the 
oracle. — Reply of the oracle. — Aristodicus and the birds' nests. — Cap- 
ture of Pactyas. — Situation of Belshazzar. — Belshazzar's feeling of secu- 
rity. — Approach of Cyrus. — Cyrus draws off the water from the river. — 
The city captured. 

IN his advance toward the dominions of Croesus in 
Asia Minor, Cyrus had passed to the northward 
of the great and celebrated city of Babylon. 
Babylon was on the Euphrates, toward the southern 
part of Asia. It was the capital of a large and very 
fertile region, which extended on both sides of the 
Euphrates toward the Persian Gulf. The limits of 
the country, however, which was subject to Babylon, 
varied very much at different times, as they were 
extended or contracted by revolutions and wars. 

(163) 



1 64 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 544 

The River Euphrates was the great source of fer- 
tility for the whole region through which it flowed. 
The country watered by this river was very densely 
populated, and the inhabitants were industrious and 
peaceable, cultivating their land, and living quietly 
and happily on its fruits. The surface was intersected 
with canals, which the people had made for convey- 
ing the water of the river over the land for the pur- 
pose of irrigating it. Some of these canals were nav- 
igable. There was one great trunk which passed 
from the Euphrates to the Tigris, supplying many 
minor canals by the way, that was navigable for ves- 
sels of considerable burden. 

The traffic of the country was, however, mainly 
conducted by means of boats of moderate size, the 
construction of which seemed to Herodotus very cu- 
rious and remarkable. The city was enormously 
large, and required immense supplies of food, which 
were brought down in these boats from the agricul- 
tural country above. The boats were made in the 
following manner: first a frame was built, of the 
shape of the intended boat, broad and shallow, and 
with the stem and stern of the same form. This 
frame was made of willows, like a basket, and, when 
finished, was covered with a sheathing of skins. A 
layer of reeds was then spread over the bottom of the 
boat to protect the frame and to distribute evenly the 
pressure of the cargo. The boat, thus finished, was 



B.C-544] CONQUEST OF BABYLON 165 

laden with the produce of the country, and was then 
floated down the river to Babylon. In this naviga- 
tion, the boatmen were careful to protect the leather 
sheathing from injury by avoiding all contact with 
rocks, or even with the gravel of the shores. They 
kept their craft in the middle of the stream by means 
of two oars, or, rather, an oar and a paddle, which 
were worked, the first at the bows, and the second 
at the stern. The advance of the boat was in some 
measure accelerated by these boatmen, though their 
main function was to steer their vessel by keeping it 
out of the eddies and away from projecting points of 
land, and directing its course to those parts of the 
stream where the current was swiftest, and where it 
would consequently be borne forward most rapidly to 
its destination. 

These boats were generally of very considerable 
size, and they carried, in addition to their cargo and 
crew, one or more beasts of burden — generally asses 
or mules. These animals were allowed the pleasure, 
if any pleasure it was to them, of sailing thus idly 
down the stream, for the sake of having them at 
hand at the end of the voyage, to carry back again, 
up the country, the skins, which constituted the 
most valuable portion of the craft they sailed in. It 
was found that these skins, if carefully preserved, 
could be easily transported up the river, and would 
answer the purpose of a second voyage. Accord- 



1 66 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 544 

ingly, when the boats arrived at Babylon, the cargo 
was sold, the boats were broken up, the skins were 
folded into packs, and in this form the mules carried 
them up the river again, the boatmen driving the 
mules as they walked by their side. 

Babylon was a city of immense extent and mag- 
nitude. In fact, the accounts given of the space 
which it covered have often been considered incredi- 
ble. These accounts make the space which was in- 
cluded within the walls four or five times as large as 
London. A great deal of this space was, however, 
occupied by parks and gardens connected with the 
royal palaces, and by open squares. Then, besides, 
the houses occupied by the common people in the 
ancient cities were of fewer stories in height, and 
consequently more extended on the ground, than 
those built in modern times. In fact, it is probable 
that, in many instances, they were mere ranges of 
huts and hovels, as is the case, indeed, to a consid- 
erable extent, in Oriental cities, at the present day, 
so that it is not at all impossible that even so large 
an area as four or five times the size of London may 
have been included within the fortifications of the 
city. 

In respect to the walls of the city, very extraordi- 
nary and apparently contradictory accounts are given 
by the various ancient authors who described them. 
Some make them seventy-five, and others two or 



B.C.544JCONQUEST OF BABYLON 167 

three hundred feet high. There have been many dis- 
cussions in respect to the comparative credibility of 
these several statements, and some ingenious attempts 
have been made to reconcile them. It is not, how- 
ever, at all surprising that there should be such a 
diversity in the dimensions given, for the walling of 
an ancient city was seldom of the same height in all 
places. The structure necessarily varied according to 
the nature of the ground, being high wherever the 
ground without was such as to give the enemy an 
advantage in an attack, and lower in other situations, 
where the conformation of the surface was such as to 
afford, of itself, a partial protection. It is not, per- 
haps, impossible that, at some particular points — as, 
for example, across glens and ravines, or along steep 
declivities — the walls of Babylon may have been 
raised even to the very extraordinary height which 
Herodotus ascribes to them. 

The walls were made of bricks, and the bricks 
were formed of clay and earth, which was dug from 
a trench made outside of the lines. This trench 
served the purpose of a ditch, to strengthen the forti- 
fication when the wall was completed. The water 
from the river, and from streams flowing toward the 
river, was admitted to these ditches on every side, 
and kept them always full. 

The sides of these ditches were lined with bricks 
too, which were made, like those of the walls, from 



168 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 544 

the earth obtained from the excavations. They used 
for all this masonry a cement made from a species of 
bitumen, which was found in great quantities float- 
ing down one of the rivers which flowed into the 
Euphrates, in the neighborhood of Babylon. 

The River Euphrates itself flowed through the 
city. There was a breast-work or low wall along 
the banks of it on either side, with openings at the 
terminations of the streets leading to the water, and 
flights of steps to go down. These openings were 
secured by gates of brass, which, when closed, would 
prevent an enemy from gaining access to the city 
from the river. The great streets, which terminated 
thus at the river on one side, extended to the walls 
of the city on the other, and they were crossed by 
other streets at right angles to them. In the outer 
walls of the city, at the extremities of all these streets, 
were massive gates of brass, with hinges and frames 
of the same metal. There were a hundred of these 
gates in all. They were guarded by watch-towers on 
the walls above. The watch-towers were built on 
both the inner and outer faces of the wall, and the 
wall itself was so broad that there was room be- 
tween these watch-towers for a chariot and four to 
drive and turn. 

The river, of course, divided the city into two 
parts. The king's palace was in the center of one of 
these divisions, within a vast circular inclosure, which 



B.C.544] CONQUEST OF BABYLON 169 

contained the palace buildings, together with the spa- 
cious courts, and parks, and gardens pertaining to 
them. In the center of the other division was a cor- 
responding inclosure, which contained the great tem- 
ple of Belus. Here there was a very lofty tower, 
divided into eight separate towers, one above another, 
with a winding staircase to ascend to the summit. 
In the upper story was a sort of chapel, with a couch, 
and a table, and other furniture for use in the sacred 
ceremonies, all of gold. Above this, on the highest 
platform of all, was a grand observatory, where the 
Babylonian astrologers made their celestial observations. 

There was a bridge across the river, connecting 
one section of the city with the other, and it is said 
that there was a subterranean passage under the river 
also, which was used as a private communication be- 
tween two public edifices — palaces or citadels — 
which were situated near the extremities of the 
bridge. All these constructions were of the most 
grand and imposing character. In addition to the 
architectural magnificence of the buildings, the gates 
and walls were embellished with a great variety of 
sculptures: images of animals, of every form and in 
every attitude; and men, single and in groups, models 
of great sovereigns, and representations of hunting 
scenes, battle scenes, and great events in the Babylo- 
nian history. 

The most remarkable, however, of all the wonders 



170 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 544 

of Babylon — though perhaps not built till after Cy- 
rus's time — were what were called the hanging gar- 
dens. Although called the hanging gardens, they were 
not suspended in any manner, as the name might de- 
note, but were supported upon arches and walls. The 
arches and walls sustained a succession of terraces, 
rising one above another, with broad flights of steps 
for ascending to them, and on these terraces the gar- 
dens were made. The upper terrace, or platform, was 
several hundred feet from the ground; so high, that it 
was necessary to build arches upon arches within, in 
order to attain the requisite elevation. The lateral 
thrust of these arches was sustained by a wall twen- 
ty-five feet in thickness, which surrounded the garden 
on all sides, and rose as high as the lowermost tier 
of arches, upon which would, of course, be concen- 
trated the pressure and weight of all the pile. The 
whole structure thus formed a sort of artificial hill, 
square in form, and rising, in a succession of terraces, 
to a broad and level area upon the top. The extent 
of this grand square upon the summit was four hun- 
dred feet upon each side. 

The surface which served as the foundation for 
the gardens that adorned these successive terraces 
and the area above was formed in the following 
manner: Over the masonry of the arches there was 
laid a pavement of broad flat stones, sixteen feet long 
and four feet wide. Over these there was placed a 



B.C.544] CONQUEST OF BABYLON 171 

stratum of reeds, laid in bitumen, and above them an- 
other flooring of bricks, cemented closely together, so 
as to be impervious to water. To make the security 
complete in this respect, the upper surface of this 
brick flooring was covered with sheets of lead, over- 
lapping each other in such a manner as to convey all 
the water which might percolate through the mold 
away to the sides of the garden. The earth and mold 
were placed upon this surface, thus prepared, and the 
stratum was so deep as to allow large trees to take 
root and grow in it. There was an engine con- 
structed in the middle of the upper terrace, by which 
water could be drawn up from the river, and distrib- 
uted over every part of the vast pile. 

The gardens, thus completed, were filled to pro- 
fusion with every species of tree, and plant, and vine, 
which could produce fruit or flowers to enrich or 
adorn' such a scene. Every country in communication 
with Babylon was made to contribute something to 
increase the endless variety of floral beauty which was 
here literally enthroned. Gardeners of great experi- 
ence and skill were constantly employed in cultiva- 
ting the parterres, pruning the fruit-trees and the 
vines, preserving the walks, and introducing new 
varieties of vegetation. In a word, the hanging gar- 
dens of Babylon became one of the wonders of the 
world. 

The country in the neighborhood of Babylon, ex- 



172 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 544 

tending from the river on either hand was in general 
level and low, and subject to inundations. One of 
the sovereigns of the country, a queen named Nitocris, 
had formed the grand design of constructing an im- 
mense lake, to take "off the superfluous water in case 
of a flood, and thus prevent an overflow. She also 
opened a great number of lateral and winding chan- 
nels for the river, wherever the natural disposition of 
the surface afforded facilities for doing so, and the 
earth which was taken out in the course of these ex- 
cavations was employed in raising the banks by arti- 
ficial terraces, such as are made to confine the Mis- 
sissippi at New Orleans, and are there called levees.* 
The object of Nitocris in these measures was two- 
fold. She wished, in the first place, to open all 
practicable channels for the flow of the water, and 
then to confine the current within the channels thus 
made. She also wished to make the navigation of 
the stream as intricate and complicated as possible, so 
that, while the natives of the country might easily 
find their way, in boats, to the capital, a foreign 
enemy, if he should make the attempt, might be con- 
fused and lost. These were the rivers of Babylon on 
the banks of which the captive Jews sat down and 
wept when they remembered Zion. 

This Queen Nitocris seems to have been quite dis- 
tinguished for her engineering and architectural plans. 

* From the French word levie, raised. 



B.C.544] CONQUEST OF BABYLON 173 

It was she that built the bridge across the Euphrates, 
within the city; and as there was a feeling of jealousy 
and ill will, as usual in such a case, between the two 
divisions of the town which the river formed, she 
caused the bridge to be constructed with a movable 
platform or draw, by means of which the communi- 
cation might be cut off at pleasure. This draw was 
generally up at night and down by day. 

Herodotus relates a curious anecdote of this queen, 
which, if true, evinces in another way the peculiar 
originality of mind and the ingenuity which charac- 
terized all her operations. She caused her tomb to be 
built, before her death, over one of the principal gates 
of the city. Upon the facade of this monument was 
a very conspicuous inscription to this effect: "If any 
one of the sovereigns, my successors, shall be in ex- 
treme want of money, let him open my tomb and 
take what he may think proper; but let him not re- 
sort to this resource unless the urgency is extreme." 

The tomb remained for some time after the queen's 
death quite undisturbed. In fact, the people of the 
city avoided this gate altogether, on account of the 
dead body deposited above it, and the spot became 
well-nigh deserted. At length, in process of time, a 
subsequent sovereign, being in want of money, ven- 
tured to open the tomb. He found, however, no 
money within. The gloomy vault contained nothing 
but the dead body of the queen, and a label with this 



174 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 544 

inscription: "If your avarice were not as insatiable as it 
is base, you would not have intruded on the repose 
of the dead." 

It was not surprising that Cyrus, having been so 
successful in his enterprises thus far, should now begin 
to turn his thoughts toward this great Babylonian 
empire, and to feel a desire to bring it under his sway. 
The first thing, however, was to confirm and secure 
his Lydian conquests. He spent some time, therefore, 
in organizing and arranging, at Sardis, the affairs of 
the new government which he was to substitute for 
that of Croesus there. He designated certain portions 
of his army to be left for garrisons in the conquered 
cities. He appointed Persian officers, of course to 
command these forces; but, as he wished to conciliate 
the Lydians, he appointed many of the municipal and 
civil officers of the country from among them. 
There would appear to be no danger in doing this, 
as, by giving the command of the army to Persians, 
he retained all the real power directly in his own 
hands. 

One of these civil officers, the most important, in 
fact, of all, was the grand treasurer. To him Cyrus 
committed the charge of the stores of gold and silver 
which came into his possession at Sardis, and of the 
revenues which were afterward to accrue. Cyrus ap- 
pointed a Lydian named Pactyas to this trust, hoping 
by. such measures to conciliate the people of the 



B.C.544]CONQUEST OF BABYLON 175 

country, and to make them more ready to submit to 
his sway. Things being thus arranged, Cyrus, taking 
Croesus with him, set out with the main army to return 
toward the East. 

As soon as he had left Lydia, Pactyas excited the 
Lydians to revolt. The name of the commander-in- 
chief of the military forces which Cyrus had left was 
Tabalus. Pactyas abandoned the city and retired 
toward the coast, where he contrived to raise a large 
army, formed partly of Lydians and partly of bodies 
of foreign troops, which he was enabled to hire by 
means of the treasures which Cyrus had put under 
his charge. He then advanced to Sardis, took posses- 
sion of the town, and shut up Tabalus, with his 
Persian troops, in the citadel. 

When the tidings of these events came to Cyrus, 
he was very much incensed, and determined to des- 
troy the city. Croesus, however, interceded very 
earnestly in its behalf. He recommended that Cyrus, 
instead of burning Sardis, should send a sufficient 
force to disarm the population, and that he should 
then enact such laws and make such arrangements 
as should turn the minds of the people to habits of 
luxury and pleasure. "By doing this," said Crcesus, 
"the people will, in a short time, become so enervated 
and so effeminate that you will have nothing to fear 
from them." 

Cyrus decided on adopting this plan. He dis- 



176 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 544 

patched a Median named Mazares, an officer of his 
army, at the head of a strong force, with orders to 
go back to Sardis, to deliver Tabalus from his 
danger, to seize and put to death all the leaders in 
the Lydian rebellion excepting Pactyas. Pactyas was 
to be saved alive, and sent a prisoner to Cyrus in 
Persia. * 

Pactyas did not wait for the arrival of Mazares. 
As soon as he heard of his approach, he aban- 
doned the ground, and fled northwardly to the 
city of Cyme, and sought refuge there. When Ma- 
zares had reached Sardis and re-established the gov- 
ernment of Cyrus there, he sent messengers to Cyme, 
demanding the surrender of the fugitive. 

The people of Cyme were uncertain whether they 
ought to comply. They said that they must first con- 
sult an oracle. There was a very ancient and cele- 
brated oracle near Miletus. They sent messengers to 
this oracle, demanding to know whether it were ac- 
cording to the will of the gods or not that the fugi- 
tive should be surrendered. The answer brought back 
was, that they might surrender him. 

They were accordingly making arrangements for 
doing this, when one of the citizens, a very prom- 
inent and influential man, named Aristodicus, ex- 
pressed himself not satisfied with the reply. He did 
not think it possible, he said, that the oracle could 
really counsel them to deliver up a helpless fugitive 



B.C.544] CONQUEST OF BABYLON 177 

to his enemies. The messengers must have mis- 
understood or misreported the answer which they 
had received. He finally persuaded his countrymen 
to send a second embassy: he himself was placed at 
the head of it. On their arrival, Aristodicus ad- 
dressed the oracle as follows: 

"To avoid a cruel death from the Persians, Pac- 
tyas, a Lydian, fled to us for refuge. The Persians 
demanded that we should surrender him. Much as 
we are afraid of their power, we are still more afraid 
to deliver up a helpless suppliant for protection with- 
out clear and decided directions from you." 

The embassy received to this demand the same 
reply as before. 

Still Aristodicus was not satisfied; and, as if by 
way of bringing home to the oracle somewhat more 
forcibly a sense of the true character of such an ac- 
tion as it seemed to recommend, he began to make 
a circuit in the grove which was around the temple 
in which the oracle resided, and to rob and destroy 
the nests which the birds had built there, allured, 
apparently, by the sacred repose and quietude of the 
scene. This had the desired effect. A solemn voice 
was heard from the interior of the temple, saying, in 
a warning tone, 

"Impious man! how dost thou dare to molest 
those who have placed themselves under my protec- 
tion?" 



178 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 538 

To this Aristodicus replied by asking the oracle 
how it was that it watched over and guarded those 
who sought its own protection, while it directed the 
people of Cyme to abandon and betray suppliants for 
theirs. To this the oracle answered, 

"I direct them to do it, in order that such impi- 
ous men may the sooner bring down upon their 
heads the judgments of Heaven for having dared to 
entertain even the thought of delivering up a helpless 
fugitive." 

When this answer was reported to the people of 
Cyme, they did not dare to give Pactyas up, nor, on 
the other hand, did they dare to incur the enmity of 
the Persians by retaining and protecting him. They 
accordingly sent him secretly away. The emissaries 
of Mazares, however, followed him. They kept con- 
stantly on his track, demanding him successively of 
every city where the hapless fugitive sought refuge, 
until, at length, partly by threats and partly by a re- 
ward, they induced a certain city to surrender him. 
Mazares sent him, a prisoner, to Cyrus. Soon after 
this Mazares himself died, and Harpagus was ap- 
pointed governor of Lydia in his stead. 

In the mean time, Cyrus went on with his con- 
quests in the heart of Asia, and at length, in the 
course of a few years, he had completed his arrange- 
ments and preparations for the attack on Babylon. 
He advanced at the head of a large force to the vicin- 



B.C.538JCONQUEST OF BABYLON 179 

ity of the city. The King of Babylon, whose name 
was Belshazzar, withdrew within the walls, shut the 
gates, and felt perfectly secure. A simple wall was 
in those days a very effectual protection against any 
armed force whatever, if it was only high enough 
not to be scaled, and thick enough to resist the 
blows of a battering ram. The artillery of modern 
times would have speedily made a fatal breach in 
such structures; but there was nothing but the sim- 
ple force of man, applied through brazen-headed 
beams of wood, in those days, and Belshazzar knew 
well that his walls would bid all such modes of dem- 
olition a complete defiance. He stationed his sol- 
diers, therefore, on the walls, and his sentinels in the 
watch towers, while he himself, and all the nobles of 
his court, feeling perfectly secure in their impregnable 
condition, and being abundantly supplied with all the 
means that the whole empire could furnish, both for 
sustenance and enjoyment, gave themselves up, in 
their spacious palaces and gardens, to gayety, fes- 
tivity, and pleasure. 

Cyrus advanced to the city. He stationed one 
large detachment of his troops at the opening in the 
main walls where the river entered into the city, and 
another one below, where it issued from it. These 
detachments were ordered to march into the city by 
the bed of the river, as soon as they should observe 
the water subsiding. He then employed a vast force 



180 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 538 

of laborers to open new channels, and to widen and 
deepen those which had existed before, for the pur- 
pose of drawing off the waters from their usual bed. 
When these passages were thus prepared, the water 
was let into them one night, at a time previously des- 
ignated, and it soon ceased to flow through the city. 
The detachments of soldiers marched in over the bed 
of the stream, carrying with them vast numbers of 
ladders. With these they easily scaled the low walls 
which lined the banks of the river, and Belshazzar 
was thunderstruck with the announcement made to 
him in the midst of one of his feasts that the Per- 
sians were in complete and full possession of the 
city. 




CHAPTER IX. 

The Restoration of the Jews. 

The Jewish captivity. — Jeremiah and the book of Chronicles.— Incursions of 
Nebuchadnezzar. — Denunciations of Jeremiah. — Predictions of Jeremiah. 

— Exasperation of the priests and people.— Defense of Jeremiah.— He is 
liberated. — Symbolic method of teaching. — The wooden yoke and the 
iron yoke. — The title deeds of Jeremiah's estate. — The deeds deposited. 

— Baruch writes Jeremiah's prophecies.— He reads them to the people. — 
Baruch summoned before the council. — The roll sent to the king. — The 
roll destroyed. — Jeremiah attempts to leave the city.— The king sends 
for Jeremiah. — He is imprisoned.— Jeremiah cast into a dungeon. — The 
king orders him to be taken up. — Jerusalem besieged by the Babylo- 
nians. — Capture of the king. — Captivity of the Jews.— The prophet Dan- 
iel. — Cyrus takes possession of Babylon, and allows the Jews to return. — 
Assembling of the Jews. — The number that returned. — Arrival of the 
caravan at Jerusalem. — Building the Temple.— Emotions of the old men. 

— Rejoicings of the young men. 

The period of the invasion of Babylonia by Cy- 
rus, and the taking of the city, was during 
the time while the Jews were in captivity 
there. Cyrus was their deliverer. It results from this 
circumstance that the name of Cyrus is connected 
with sacred history more than that of any other great 
conqueror of ancient times. 

It was a common custom in the early ages of the 
world for powerful sovereigns to take the people of 
a conquered country captive, and make them slaves. 
They employed them, to some extent, as personal 

(.8t) 



1 82 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 608 

household servants, but more generally as agricul- 
tural laborers, to till the lands. 

An account of the captivity of the Jews in Baby- 
lon is given briefly in the closing chapters of the 
second book of Chronicles, though many of the at- 
tendant circumstances are more fully detailed in the 
book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah was a prophet who lived 
in the time of the captivity. Nebuchadnezzar, the 
King of Babylon, made repeated incursions into the 
land of Judea, sometimes carrying away the reigning 
monarch, sometimes deposing him and appointing 
another sovereign in his stead, sometimes assessing a 
tax or tribute upon the land, and sometimes plunder- 
ing the city, and carrying away all the gold and sil- 
ver that he could find. Thus the kings and the peo- 
ple were kept in a continual state of anxiety and 
terror for many years, exposed incessantly to the 
inroads of this nation of robbers and plunderers, that 
had, so unfortunately for them, found their way 
across their frontiers. King Zedekiah was the last of 
this oppressed and unhappy line of Jewish kings. 

The prophet Jeremiah was accustomed to denounce 
the sins of the Jewish nation, by which these terrible 
calamities had been brought upon them, with great 
courage, and with an eloquence solemn and sublime. 
He declared that the miseries which the people suf- 
fered were the special judgments of Heaven, and he 
proclaimed repeatedly and openly, and in the most pub- 



B.C. 608] THE RESTORATION 183 

lie places of the city, still heavier calamities which he 
said were impending^ The people were troubled and 
distressed at these prophetic warnings, and some of 
them were deeply incensed against Jeremiah for utter- 
ing them. Finally, on one occasion, he took his stand 
in one of the public courts of the Temple, and, ad- 
dressing the concourse of priests and people that 
were there, he declared that, unless the nation re- 
pented of their sins and turned to God, the whole city 
should be overwhelmed. Even the Temple itself, the 
sacred house of God, should be destroyed, and the 
very site abandoned. 

The priests and the people who heard this de- 
nunciation were greatly exasperated. They seized 
Jeremiah, and brought him before a great judicial as- 
sembly for trial. The judges asked him why he 
uttered such predictions, declaring that by doing so 
he acted like an enemy to his country and a traitor, 
and that he deserved to die. The excitement was 
very great against him, and the populace could hardly 
be restrained from open violence. In the midst of 
this scene Jeremiah was calm and unmoved, and re- 
plied to their accusations as follows: 

"Every thing which I have said against this city 
and this house, I have said by the direction of the 
Lord Jehovah. Instead of resenting it, and being 
angry with me for delivering my message, it becomes 
you to look at your sins, and repent of them, and for- 



i8 4 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 608 

sake them. It may be that by so doing God will 
have mercy upon you, and will avert the calamities 
which otherwise will most certainly come. As for 
myself, here I am in your hands. You can deal with 
me just as you think best. You can kill me if you 
will, but you may be assured that if you do so, you 
will bring the guilt and the consequences of shedding 
innocent blood upon yourselves and upon this city. 
I have said nothing and foretold nothing but by com- 
mandment of the Lord."* 

The speech produced, as might have been ex- 
pected, a great division among the hearers. Some 
were more angry than ever, and were eager to put 
the prophet to death. Others defended him, and in- 
sisted that he should not die. The latter, for the time, 
prevailed. Jeremiah was set at liberty, and continued 
his earnest expostulations with the people on account 
of their sins, and his terrible annunciations of the im- 
pending ruin of the city just as before. 

These unwelcome truths being so painful for the 
people to hear, other prophets soon began to appear 
to utter contrary predictions, for the sake, doubtless, 
of the popularity which they should themselves ac- 
quire by their promises of returning peace and pros- 
perity. The name of one of these false prophets was 
Hananiah. On one occasion, Jeremiah, in order to 
present and enforce what he had to say more effectu- 

* Jeremiah, xxvi., 12-15. 



B.C.6o8] THE RESTORATION 185 

ally on the minds of the people by means of a visible 
symbol, made a small wooden yoke, by divine direc- 
tion, and placed it upon his neck, as a token of the 
bondage which his predictions were threatening. Han- 
aniah took this yoke from his neck and broke it, say- 
ing that, as he had thus broken Jeremiah's wooden 
yoke, so God would break the yoke of Nebuchadnez- 
zar from all nations within two years; and then, even 
those of the Jews who had already been taken cap- 
tive to Babylon should return again in peace. Jere- 
miah replied that Hananiah's predictions were false, 
and that, though the wooden yoke was broken, God 
would make for Nebuchadnezzar a yoke of iron, with 
which he should bend the Jewish nation in a bond- 
age more cruel than ever. Still, Jeremiah himself 
predicted that after seventy years from the time when 
the last great captivity should come, the Jews should 
all be restored again to their native land. 

He expressed this certain restoration of the Jews, 
on one occasion, by a sort of symbol, by means of 
which he made a much stronger impression on the 
minds of the people than could have been done by 
simple words. There was a piece of land in the 
country of Benjamin, one of the provinces of Judea, 
which belonged to the family of Jeremiah, and it was 
held in such a way that, by paying a certain sum of 
money, Jeremiah himself might possess it, the right 
of redemption being in him. Jeremiah was in prison 



1 86 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 608 

at this time. His uncle's son came into the court of 
the prison, and proposed to him to purchase the 
land. Jeremiah did so in the most public and formal 
manner. The title deeds were drawn up and sub- 
scribed, witnesses were summoned, the money weighed 
and paid over, the whole transaction being regularly 
completed according to the forms and usages then 
common for the conveyance of landed property. 
When all was finished, Jeremiah gave the papers into 
the hands of his scribe, directing him to put them 
safely away and preserve them with care, for after a 
certain period the country of Judea would again be 
restored to the peaceable possession of the Jews, and 
such titles to land would possess once more their full 
and original value. 

On one occasion, when Jeremiah's personal liberty 
was restricted so that he could not utter publicly, 
himself, his prophetical warnings, he employed Baruch, 
his scribe, to write them from his dictation, with a 
view of reading them to the people from some public 
and frequented part of the city. The prophecy thus 
dictated was inscribed upon a roll of parchment. Ba- 
ruch waited, when he had completed the writing, 
until a favorable opportunity occurred for reading it, 
which was on the occasion of a great festival that 
was held at Jerusalem, and which brought the inhab- 
itants of the land together from all parts of Judea. 
On the day of the festival, Baruch took the roll in his 



B.C. 608] THE RESTORATION 187 

hand, and stationed himself at a very public place, at 
the entrance of one of the great courts of the Tem- 
ple; there, calling upon the people to hear him, he 
began to read. A great concourse gathered around 
him, and all listened to him with profound attention. 
One of the by-standers, however, went down imme- 
diately into the city, to the king's palace, and reported 
to the king's council, who were then assembled there, 
that a great concourse was convened in one of the 
courts of the Temple, and that Baruch was there 
reading to them a discourse or prophecy which had 
been written by Jeremiah. The members of the coun- 
cil sent a summons to Baruch to come immediately 
to them, and to bring his writing with him. 

When Baruch arrived, they directed him to read 
what he had written. Baruch accordingly read it. 
They asked him when and how that discourse was 
written. Baruch replied that he had written it, word 
by word, from the dictation of Jeremiah. The officers 
informed him that they should be obliged to report 
the circumstances to the king, and they counseled 
Baruch to go to Jeremiah and recommend to him to 
conceal himself, lest the king, in his anger, should do 
him some sudden and violent injury.* 

The officers then, leaving the roll in one of their 
own apartments, went to the king, and reported the 
facts to him. He sent one of his attendants, named 

*See the account of these transactions in the 36th chapter of Jeremiah. 



1 88 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 608 

Jehudi, to bring the roll. When it came, the king di- 
rected Jehudi to read it. Jehudi did so, standing by 
a fire which had been made in the apartment, for it 
was bitter cold. 

After Jehudi had read a few pages from the roll, 
finding that it contained a repetition of the same de- 
nunciations and warnings by which the king had 
often been displeased before, he took a knife and be- 
gan to cut the parchment into pieces, and to throw 
it on the fire. Some other persons who were stand- 
ing by interfered, and earnestly begged the king not 
to allow the roll to be burned. But the king did not 
interfere. He permitted Jehudi to destroy the parch- 
ment altogether, and then sent officers to take Jere- 
miah and Baruch, and bring them to him; but they 
ivere nowhere to be found. 

The prophet, on one occasion, was reduced to ex- 
treme distress by the persecutions which his faithful- 
ness, and the incessant urgency of his warnings and 
expostulations had brought upon him. It was at a 
time when the Chaldean armies had been driven away 
from Jerusalem for a short period by the Egyptians, 
as one vulture drives away another from its prey. 
Jeremiah determined to avail himself of the oppor- 
tunity to go to the province of Benjamin, to visit his 
friends and family there. He was intercepted, how- 
ever, at one of the gates, on his way, and accused 
of a design to make his escape from the city, and go 



B.C. 608] THE RESTORATION 189 

over to the Chaldeans. The prophet earnestly denied 
this charge. They paid no regard to his declarations, 
but sent him back to Jerusalem, to the officers of the 
king's government, who confined him in a house 
which they used as a prison. 

After he had remained in this place of confinement 
for several days, the king sent and took him from it, 
and brought him to the palace. The king inquired 
whether he had any prophecy to utter from the Lord. 
Jeremiah replied that the word of the Lord was, that 
the Chaldeans should certainly return again, and that 
Zedekiah himself should fall into their hands, and be 
carried captive to Babylon. While he thus persisted 
so strenuously in the declarations which he had made 
so often before, he demanded of the king that he 
should not be sent back again to the house of im- 
prisonment from which he had been rescued. The 
king said he would not send him back, and he ac- 
cordingly directed, instead, that he should be taken 
to the court of the public prison, where his confine- 
ment would be less rigorous, and there he was to be 
supplied daily with food, so long, as the king ex- 
pressed it, as there should be any food remaining in 
the city. 

But Jeremiah's enemies were not at rest. They 
came again, after a time, to the king, and represented 
to him that the prophet, by his gloomy and terrible 
predictions, discouraged and depressed the hearts of 



190 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 608 

the people, and weakened their hands; that he ought, 
accordingly, to be regarded as a public enemy; and 
they begged the king to proceed decidedly against 
him. The king replied that he would give him into 
their hands, and they might do with him what they 
pleased. 

There was a dungebn in the prison, the only ac- 
cess to which was from above. Prisoners were let 
down into it with ropes, and left there to die of hun- 
ger. The bottom of it was wet and miry, and the 
prophet, when let down into its gloomy depths, sank 
into the deep mire. Here he would soon have died 
of hunger and misery; but the king, feeling some 
misgivings in regard' to what he had done, lest it 
might really be a true prophet of God that he had 
thus delivered into the hands of his enemies, inquired 
what the people had done with their prisoner; and 
when he learned that he had been thus, as it were, 
buried alive, he immediately sent officers with orders 
to take him out of the dungeon. The officers went 
to the dungeon. They opened the mouth of it. 
They had brought ropes with them, to be used for 
drawing the unhappy prisoner up, and cloths, also, 
which he was to fold together and place under his 
arms, where the ropes were to pass. These ropes 
and cloths they let down into the dungeon, and called 
upon Jeremiah to place them properly around his body. 
Thus they drew him safely up out of the dismal den. 



B.C. 608] THE RESTORATION 191 

These cruel persecutions of the faithful prophet 
were all unavailing either to silence his voice or to 
avert the calamities which his warnings portended. 
At the appointed time, the judgments which had been 
so long predicted came in all their terrible reality. 
The Babylonians invaded the land in great force, and 
encamped about the city. The siege continued for 
two years. At the end of that time the famine be- 
came insupportable. Zedekiah, the king, determined 
to make a sortie, with as strong a force as he could 
command, secretly, at night, in hopes to escape with 
his own life, and intending to leave the city to its 
fate. He succeeded in passing out through the city 
gates with his band of followers, and in actually pass- 
ing the Babylonian lines; but he had not gone far be- 
fore his escape was discovered. He was pursued and 
taken. The city was then stormed and, as usual in 
such cases, it was given up to plunder and destruc- 
tion. Vast numbers of the inhabitants were killed; 
many more were taken captive; the principal build- 
ings, both public and private, were burned; the walls 
were broken down, and all the public treasures of the 
Jews, the gold and silver vessels of the Temple, and 
a vast quantity of private plunder, were carried away 
to Babylon by the conquerors. All this was seventy 
years before the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus. 

Of course, during the time of this captivity, a very 
considerable portion of the inhabitants of Judea re- 



ipa CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. $ 3 6 

mained in their native land. The deportation of a 
whole people to a foreign land is impossible. A vast 
number, however, of the inhabitants of the country 
were carried away, and they remained, for two gen- 
erations, in a miserable bondage. Some of them were 
employed as agricultural laborers in the rural districts 
of Babylon; others remained in the city, and were en- 
gaged in servile labors there. The prophet Daniel 
lived in the palaces of the king. He was summoned, 
as the reader will recollect, to Belshazzar's feast, on 
the night when Cyrus forced his way into the city, 
to interpret the mysterious writing on the wall, by 
which the fall of the Babylonian monarchy was an- 
nounced in so terrible a manner. 

One year after Cyrus had conquered Babylon, he 
issued an edict authorizing the Jews to return to 
Jerusalem, and to rebuild the city and the Temple. 
This event had been long before predicted by the 
prophets, as the result which God had determined 
upon for purposes of his own. We should not naturally 
have expected that such a conqueror as Cyrus would 
feel any real and honest interest in promoting the de- 
signs of God; but still, in the proclamation which he 
issued authorizing the Jews to return, he acknowledged 
the supreme divinity of Jehovah, and says that he was 
charged by him with the work of rebuilding his 
Temple, and restoring his worship at its ancient seat 
on Mount Zion. It has, however, been supposed by 



B.C. $36] THE RESTORATION 193 

some scholars, who have examined attentively all the 
circumstances connected with these transactions, that 
so far as Cyrus was influenced by political considera- 
tions in ordering the return of the Jews, his design 
was to re-establish that nation as a barrier between 
his dominions and those of the Egyptians. The 
Egyptians and the Chaldeans had long been deadly 
enemies, and now that Cyrus had become master of 
the Chaldean realms, he would, of course, in assum- 
ing their territories and their power, be obliged to de- 
fend himself against their foes. 

Whatever may have been the motives of Cyrus, 
he decided to allow the Hebrew captives to return, 
and he issued a proclamation to that effect. As 
seventy years had elapsed since the captivity com- 
menced, about two generations had passed away, 
and there could have been very few then living who 
had ever seen the land of their fathers. The Jews 
were, however, all eager to return. They collected 
in a vast assembly, with all the treasures which they 
were allowed to take, and the stores of provisions 
and baggage, and with horses, and mules, and other 
beasts of burden to transport them. When assembled 
for the march, it was found that the number, of 
which a very exact census was taken, was forty-nine 
thousand six hundred and ninety-seven. 

They had also with them seven or eight hundred 

M. of H.— 11— 13 



i 9 4 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 536 

horses, about two hundred and fifty mules, and about 
five hundred camels. The chief part, however, of 
their baggage and stores was borne by asses, of 
which there were nearly seven thousand in the train. 
The march of this peaceful multitude of families — 
men, women, and children together — burdened as 
they went, not with arms and ammunition for con- 
quest and destruction, but with tools and implements 
for honest industry, and stores of provisions and 
utensils for the peaceful purposes of social life, as it 
was, in its bearings and results, one of the grandest 
events of history, so it must have presented, in its 
progress, one of the most extraordinary spectacles 
that the world has ever seen. 

The grand caravan pursued its long and toilsome 
march from Babylon to Jerusalem without molesta- 
tion. All arrived safely, and the people immediately 
commenced the work of repairing the walls of the 
city and rebuilding the Temple. When, at length, 
the foundations of the Temple were laid, a great 
celebration was held to commemorate the event. 
This celebration exhibited a remarkable scene of 
mingled rejoicing and mourning. The younger part 
of the population, who had never seen Jerusalem in 
its former grandeur, felt only exhilaration and joy at 
their re-establishment in the city of their fathers. 
The work of raising the edifice, whose foundations 
they had laid, was to them simply a new enterprise, 



B.C.536] THE RESTORATION 195 

and they looked forward to the work of carrying it 
on with pride and pleasure. The old men, however, 
who remembered the former Temple, were filled with 
mournful recollections of days of prosperity and 
peace in their childhood, and of the magnificence of 
the former Temple, which they could now never 
hope to see realized again. It was customary, in 
those days, to express sorrow and grief by exclama- 
tions and outcries, as gladness and joy are expressed 
audibly now. Accordingly, on. this occasion, the 
cries of grief and of bitter regret at the thought of 
losses which could now never be retrieved, were 
mingled with the shouts of rejoicing and triumph 
raised by the ardent and young, who knew nothing 
of the past, but looked forward with hope and 
happiness to the future. 

The Jews encountered various hinderances, and 
met with much opposition in their attempts to recon- 
struct their ancient city, and to re-establish the Mosaic 
ritual there. We must, however, now return to the 
history of Cyrus, referring the reader for a narrative 
of the circumstances connected with the rebuilding of 
Jerusalem to the very minute account given in the 
sacred books of Ezra and Nehemiah. 



CHAPTER X. 

The Story of Panthea. 

Xenophon's romantic tales. — Panthea a Susian captive. — Valuable spoil. — Its 
division. — Share of Cyrus. — Panthea given to Cyrus. — Araspes. — Abra- 
dates. — Account of Panthea's capture. — Her great loveliness. — Attempts 
at consolation. — Panthea's renewed grief. — Cyrus declines to see Pan- 
thea. — His reasons. — Araspes's self-confidence.— Panthea's patience and 
gentleness. — Araspes's kindness to Panthea. — His emotions master him. 

— Araspes in love. — Progress of the army. — Araspes confesses his love. — 
Panthea offended. — Panthea appeals to Cyrus. — Cyrus reproves Araspes. 

— Cyrus's generosity. — Araspes's continued distress. — Plan of Cyrus. — 
Araspes pretends to desert. — Panthea proposes to send for her husband. 

— Cyrus consents. — Joyful meeting of Panthea and her husband. — The 
armed chariots. — Abradates's eight-horse chariot. — Panthea's presents 
for her husband. — Imposing spectacle. — Panthea's preparations. — 
Panthea offers her presents. — Abradates's pleasure. — Abradates departs 
for the field.— The farewell.— The order of battle.— Appearance of 
Abradates.— The charge.— Terrible havoc made by the chariots.— The 
great victory. — The council of war. — Abradates slain. — Panthea's grief. 

— Cyrus's kindness to Panthea.— She is inconsolable.— Panthea kills her- 
self on the dead body of her husband. 

IN the preceding chapters of this work, we have 
followed mainly the authority of Herodotus, ex- 
cept, indeed, in the account of the visit of Cy- 
rus to his grandfather in his childhood, which is taken 
from Xenophon. We shall, in this chapter, relate the 
story of Panthea, which is also one of Xenophon's 
tales. We give it as a specimen of the romantic nar- 
ratives in which Xenophon's history abounds, and on 
account of the many illustrations of ancient manners 
(196) 



STORY OF PANTHEA 197 

and customs which it contains, leaving it for each 
reader to decide for himself what weight he will at- 
tach to its claims to be regarded as veritable history. 
We relate the story here in our own language, but 
as to the facts, we follow faithfully the course of 
Xenophon's narration. 

Panthea was a Susian captive. She was taken, 
together with a great many other captives and much 
plunder, after one of the great battles which Cyrus 
fought with the Assyrians. Her husband was an As- 
syrian general, though he himself was not captured 
at this time with his wife. The spoil which came 
into possession of the army on the occasion of the 
battle in which Panthea was taken was of great 
value. There were beautiful and costly suits of arms, 
rich tents made of splendid materials and highly 
ornamented, large sums of money, vessels of silver 
and gold, and slaves — some prized for their beauty, 
and others for certain accomplishments which were 
highly valued in those days. Cyrus appointed a sort 
of commission to divide this spoil. He pursued al- 
ways a very generous policy on all these occasions, 
showing no desire to secure such treasures to him- 
self, but distributing them with profuse liberality 
among his officers and soldiers. 

The commissioners whom he appointed in this 
case divided the spoil among the various generals of 
the army, and among the different bodies of soldiery, 



198 CYRUS THE GREAT 

with great impartiality. Among the prizes assigned 
to Cyrus were two singing women of great fame, 
and this Susian lady. Cyrus thanked the distributors 
for the share of booty which they had thus assigned 
to him, but said that if any of his friends wished for 
either of these captives, they could have them. An 
officer asked for one of the singers. Cyrus gave her 
to him immediately, saying, "I consider myself more 
obliged to you for asking her, than you are to me 
for giving her to you." As for the Susian lady, Cy- 
rus had not yet seen her, but he called one of his 
most intimate and confidential friends to him, and 
requested him to take her under his charge. 

The name of this officer was Araspes. He was a 
Mede, and he had been Cyrus's particular friend and 
playmate when he was a boy, visiting his grandfather 
in Media. The reader will perhaps recollect that he 
is mentioned toward the close of our account of that 
visit, as the special favorite to whom Cyrus presented 
his robe or mantle when he took leave of his friends 
in returning to his native land. 

Araspes, when he received this charge, asked Cy- 
rus whether he had himself seen the lady. Cyrus 
replied that he had not. Araspes then proceeded to 
give an account of her. The name of her husband 
was Abradates, and he was the king of Susa, as 
they termed him. The reason he was not taken 
prisoner at the same time with his wife was, that 



STORY OF PANTHEA 199 

when the battle was fought and the Assyrian camp 
captured, he was absent, having gone away on an 
embassage to another nation. This circumstance 
shows that Abradates, though called a king, could 
hardly have been a sovereign and independent prince, 
but rather a governor or viceroy — those words ex- 
pressing to our minds more truly the station of such 
a sort of king as could be sent on an embassy. 

Araspes went on to say that, at the time of their 
making the capture, he, with some others, went into 
Panthea's tent, where they found her and her at- 
tendant ladies sitting on the ground, with veils over 
their faces, patiently awaiting their doom. Notwith- 
standing the concealment produced by the attitudes 
and dress of these ladies, there was something about 
the air and figure of Panthea which showed at once 
that she was the queen. The leader of Araspes's 
party asked them all to rise. They did so, and then 
the superiority of Panthea was still more apparent 
than before. There was an extraordinary grace and 
beauty in her attitude and in all her motions. She 
stood in a dejected posture, and her countenance was 
sad, though inexpressibly lovely. She endeavored to 
appear calm and composed, though the tears had evi- 
dently been falling from her eyes. 

The soldiers pitied her in her distress, and the 
leader of the party attempted to console her, as 
Araspes said, by telling her that she had nothing to 



aoo CYRUS THE GREAT 

fear; that they were aware that her husband was a 
most worthy and excellent man; and although, by this 
capture, she was lost to him, she would have no 
cause to regret the event, for she would be reserved 
for a new husband not at all inferior to her former 
one either in person, in understanding, in rank, or in 
power. 

These well-meant attempts at consolation did not 
appear to have the good effect desired.' They only 
awakened Panthea's grief and suffering anew. The 
tears began to fall again faster than before. Her grief 
soon became more and more uncontrollable. She 
sobbed and cried aloud, and began to wring her 
hands and tear her mantle — the customary Oriental 
expression of inconsolable sorrow and despair. Aras- 
pes said that in these gesticulations her neck, and 
hands, and a part of her face appeared, and that she 
was the most beautiful woman that he had ever be- 
held. He wished Cyrus to see her. 

Cyrus said, "No; he would not see her by any 
means." Araspes asked him why. He said that there 
would be danger that he should forget his duty to 
the army, and lose his interest in the great military 
enterprise in which he was engaged, if he should al- 
low himself to become captivated by the charms of 
such a lady, as he very probably would be if he were 
now to visit her. Araspes said in reply that Cyrus 
might at least see her; as to becoming captivated 



STORY OF PANTHEA 201 

with her, and devoting himself to her to such a de- 
gree as to neglect his other duties, he could certainly 
control himself in respect to that danger. Cyrus said 
that it was not certain that he could so control him- 
self; and then there followed a long discussion between 
Cyrus and Araspes, in which Araspes maintained that 
every man had the command of his own heart and af- 
fections, and that, with proper determination and 
energy, he could direct the channels in which they 
should run, and confine them within such limits and 
bounds as he pleased. Cyrus, on the other hand, 
maintained that human passions were stronger than 
the human will; that no one could rely on the 
strength of his resolutions to control the impulses of 
the heart once strongly excited, and that a man's only 
safety was in controlling the circumstances which 
tended to excite them. This was specially true, he 
said, in respect to the passion of love. The experi- 
ence of mankind, he said, had shown that no strength 
of moral principle, no firmness of purpose, no fixed- 
ness of resolution, no degree of suffering, no fear of 
shame, was sufficient to control, in the hearts of men, 
the impetuosity of the passion of love, when it was 
once fairly awakened. In a word, Araspes advocated, 
on the subject of love, a sort of new school philos- 
ophy, while that of Cyrus leaned very seriously to- 
ward the old. 

In conclusion, Cyrus jocosely counseled Araspes to 



202 CYRUS THE GREAT 

beware lest he should prove that love was stronger 
than the will by becoming himself enamored of the 
beautiful Susian queen. Araspes said that Cyrus need 
not fear; there was no danger. He must be a miser- 
able wretch indeed, he said, who could not summon 
within him sufficient resolution and energy to control 
his own passions and desires. As for himself, he was 
sure that he was safe. 

As usual with those who are self-confident and 
boastful, Araspes failed when the time of trial came. 
He took charge of the royal captive whom Cyrus 
committed to him with a very firm resolution to be 
faithful to his trust. He pitied the unhappy queen's 
misfortunes, and admired the heroic patience and 
gentleness of spirit with which she bore them. The 
beauty of her countenance, and her thousand personal 
charms, which were all heightened by the expression 
of sadness and sorrow which they bore, touched his 
heart. It gave him pleasure to grant her every in- 
dulgence consistent with her condition of captivity, 
and to do every thing in his power to promote her 
welfare. She was very grateful for these favors, and 
the few brief words and looks of kindness with which 
she returned them repaid him for his efforts to please 
her a thousand-fold. He saw her, too, in her tent, 
in the presence of her maidens, at all times; and as 
she looked upon him as only her custodian and guard, 
and as, too, her mind was wholly occupied by the 



STORY OF PANTHEA 203 

thoughts of her absent husband and her hopeless grief, 
her actions were entirely free and unconstrained in his 
presence. This made her only the more attractive; 
every attitude and movement seemed to possess, in 
Araspes's mind, an inexpressible charm. In a word, 
the result was what Cyrus had predicted. Araspes 
became wholly absorbed in the interest which was 
awakened in him by the charms of the beautiful cap- 
tive. He made many resolutions, but they were of 
no avail. While he was away from her, he felt strong 
in his determination to yield to these feelings no more; 
but as soon as he came into her presence, all these 
resolutions melted wholly away, and he yielded his 
heart entirely to the control of emotions which, how- 
ever vincible they might appear at a distance, were 
found, when the time of trial came, to possess a cer- 
tain mysterious and magic power, which made it 
most delightful for the heart to yield before them in 
the contest, and utterly impossible to stand firm and 
resist. In a word, when seen at a distance, love ap- 
peared to him an enemy which he was ready to brave, 
and was sure that he could overcome; but when near, 
it transformed itself into the guise of a friend, and he 
accordingly threw down the arms with which he had 
intended to combat it, and gave himself up to it in a 
delirium of pleasure. 

Things continued in this state for some time. The 
army advanced from post to post, and from encamp- 



204 CYRUS THE GREAT 

ment to encampment, taking the captives in their 
train. New cities were taken, new provinces over- 
run, and new plans for future conquests were formed. 
At last a case occurred in which Cyrus wished to 
send some one as a spy into a distant enemy's coun- 
try. The circumstances were such that it was neces- 
sary that a person of considerable intelligence and 
rank should go, as Cyrus wished the messenger 
whom he should send to make his way to the court 
of the sovereign, and become personally acquainted 
with the leading men of the state, and to examine 
the general resources of the kingdom. It was a very 
different case from that of an ordinary spy, who was 
to go into a neighboring camp merely to report 
the numbers and disposition of an organized army. 
Cyrus was uncertain whom he should send on such 
an embassy. 

In the mean time, Araspes had ventured to express 
to Panthea his love for her. She was offended. In 
the first place, she was faithful to her husband, and 
did not wish to receive such addresses from any 
person. Then, besides, she considered Araspes, hav- 
ing been placed in charge of her by Cyrus, his master, 
only for the purpose of keeping her safely, as guilty 
of a betrayal of his trust in having dared to cherish 
and express sentiments of affection for her himself. 
She, however, forbore to reproach him, or to com- 
plain of him to Cyrus. She simply repelled the ad- 



STORY OF PANTHEA 205 

varices that he made, supposing that, if she did this 
with firmness and decision, Araspes would feel re- 
buked and would say no more. It did not, however, 
produce this effect. Araspes continued to importune 
her with declarations of love, and at length she felt 
compelled to appeal to Cyrus. 

Cyrus, instead of being incensed at what might 
have been considered a betrayal of trust on the part 
of Araspes, only laughed at the failure and fall in 
which all his favorite's promises and boastings had 
ended. He sent a messenger to Araspes to caution 
him in regard *to his conduct, telling him that he 
ought to respect the feelings of such a woman as Pan- 
thea had proved herself to be. The messenger whom 
Cyrus sent was not content with delivering his mes- 
sage as Cyrus had dictated it. He made it much more 
stern and severe. In fact, he reproached the lover, 
in a very harsh and bitter manner, for indulging such 
a passion. He told him that he had betrayed a sacred 
trust reposed in him, and acted in a manner at once 
impious and unjust. Araspes was overwhelmed with 
remorse and anguish, and with fear of the conse- 
quences which might ensue, as men are when the 
time arrives for being called to account for transgres- 
sions which, while they were committing them, gave 
them little concern. 

When Cyrus heard how much Araspes had been 
distressed by the message of reproof which he had 



2o6 CYRUS THE GREAT 

received, and by his fears of punishment, he sent for 
him. Araspes came. Cyrus told him that he had no 
occasion to be alarmed. "I do not wonder," said he, 
"at the result which has happened. We all know 
how difficult it is to resist the influence which is ex- 
erted upon our minds by the charms of a beautiful 
woman, when we are thrown into circumstances of 
familiar intercourse with her. Whatever of wrong 
there has been ought to be considered as more my 
fault than yours. I was wrong in placing you in 
such circumstances of temptation, by giving you so 
beautiful a woman in charge." 

Araspes was very much struck with the generosity 
of Cyrus, in thus endeavoring to soothe his anxiety 
and remorse, and taking upon himself the responsi- 
bility and the blame. He thanked Cyrus very ear- 
nestly for his kindness; but he said that, notwithstand- 
ing his sovereign's willingness to forgive him, he felt 
still oppressed with grief and concern, for the knowl- 
edge of his fault had been spread abroad in the army; 
his enemies were rejoicing over him, and were pre- 
dicting his disgrace and ruin; and some persons had 
even advised him to make his escape, by absconding 
before any worse calamity should befall him. 

"If this is so," said Cyrus, "it puts it in your 
power to render me a very essential service." Cyrus 
then explained to Araspes the necessity that he was 
under of finding some confidential agent to go on a 



STORY OF PANTHEA 207 

secret mission into the enemy's country, and the im- 
portance that the messenger should go under such 
circumstances as not to be suspected of being Cyrus's 
friend in disguise. "You can pretend to abscond," 
said he; "it will be immediately said that you fled 
for fear of my displeasure. I will pretend to send in 
pursuit of you. The news of your evasion will spread 
rapidly, and will be carried, doubtless, into the 
enemy's country; so that, when you arrive there, they 
will be prepared to welcome you as a deserter from 
my cause, and a refugee." 

This plan was agreed upon, and Araspes prepared 
for his departure. Cyrus gave him his instructions, 
and they concerted together the information — ficti- 
tious, of course — which he was to communicate to 
the enemy in respect to Cyrus's situation and de- 
signs. When all was ready for his departure, Cyrus 
asked him how it was that he was so willing to sep- 
arate himself thus from the beautiful Panthea. He 
said in reply, that when he was absent from Panthea, 
he was capable of easily forming any determination, 
and of pursuing any line of conduct that his duty re- 
quired, while yet, in her presence, he found his love 
for her, and the impetuous feelings to which it gave 
rise, wholly and absolutely uncontrollable. 

As soon as Araspes was gone, Panthea, who sup- 
posed that he had really fled for fear of the indigna- 
tion of the king, in consequence of his unfaithfulness 



208 CYRUS THE GREAT 

to his trust, sent to Cyrus a message, expressing her 
regret at the unworthy conduct and flight of Araspes, 
and saying that she could, and gladly would, if he 
consented, repair the loss which the desertion of 
Araspes occasioned by sending for her own husband. 
He was, she said, dissatisfied with the government 
under which he lived, having been cruelly and tyran- 
nically treated by the prince. "If you will allow me 
to send for him," she added, "I am sure he will 
come and join your army; and I assure you that you 
will find him a much more faithful and devoted serv- 
ant than Araspes has been." 

Cyrus consented to this proposal, and Panthea 
sent for Abradates. Abradates came at the head of 
two thousand horse, which formed a very important 
addition to the forces under Cyrus's command. The 
meeting between Panthea and her husband was joy- 
ful in the extreme. When Abradates learned from 
his wife how honorable and kind had been the treat- 
ment which Cyrus had rendered to her, he was over- 
whelmed with a sense of gratitude, and he declared 
that he would do the utmost in his power to requite 
the obligations he was under. 

Abradates entered at once, with great ardor and 
zeal, into plans for making the force which he had 
brought as efficient as possible in the service of Cy- 
rus. He observed that Cyrus was interested, at that 
time, in attempting to build and equip a corps of 



CYRUS AT THE BATTLE OF TRYMBRA 



STORY OF PANTHEA 209 

armed chariots, such as were often used in fields of 
battle in those days. This was a very expensive sort 
of force, corresponding, in that respect, with the artil- 
lery used in modern times. The carriages were 
heavy and strong, and were drawn generally by two 
horses. They had short, scythe-like blades of steel 
projecting from the axle-trees on each side, by which 
the ranks of the enemy were mowed down when the 
carriages were driven among them. The chariots 
were made to contain, besides the driver of the 
horses, one or more warriors, each armed in the 
completest manner. These warriors stood on the floor 
of the vehicle and fought with javelins and spears. 
The great plains which abound in the interior coun- 
tries of Asia were very favorable for this species of 
warfare. 

Abradates immediately fitted up for Cyrus a hun- 
dred such chariots at his own expense, and provided 
horses to draw them from his own troop. He made 
one chariot much larger than the rest, for himself, as he 
intended to take command of this corps of chariots in 
person. His own chariot was to be drawn by eight 
horses. His wife Panthea was very much interested 
in these preparations. She wished to do something 
herself toward the outfit. She accordingly furnished, 
from her own private treasures, a helmet, a corslet, 
and arm-pieces of gold. These articles formed a suit 
of armor sufficient to cover all that part of the body 

M. of H. — 1 1 — 14 



210 CYRUS THE GREAT 

which would be exposed in standing in the chariot. 
She also provided breast-pieces and side-pieces of 
brass for the horses. The whole chariot, thus equipped, 
with its eight horses their gay trappings and re- 
splendent armor, and with Abradates standing within 
it, clothed in his panoply of gold, presented, as it 
drove, in the sight of the whole army, around the 
plain of the encampment, a most imposing spectacle. 
It was a worthy leader, as the spectators thought, to 
head the formidable column of a hundred similar 
engines which were to follow in its train. If we im- 
agine the havoc which a hundred scythe-armed car- 
riages would produce when driven, with headlong fury, 
into dense masses of men, on a vast open plain, we 
shall have some idea of one item of the horrors of 
ancient war. 

The full splendor of Abradates's equipments were 
not, however, displayed at first, for Panthea kept 
what she had done a secret for a time, intending to 
reserve her contribution for a parting present to her 
husband when the period should arrive for going to 
battle. She had accordingly taken the measure for 
her work by stealth, from the armor which Abradates 
was accustomed to wear, and had caused the artificers 
to make the golden pieces with the utmost secrecy. 
Besides the substantial defenses of gold which she 
provided, she added various other articles for orna- 
ment and decoration. There was a purple robe, a 



STORY OF PANTHEA 211 

crest for the helmet, which was of a violet color, 
plumes, and likewise bracelets for the wrists. Pan- 
thea kept all these things herself until the day arrived 
when her husband was going into battle for the first 
time with his train, and then, when he went into 
his tent to prepare himself to ascend his chariot, she 
brought them to him. 

Abradates was astonished when he saw them. 
He soon understood how they had been provided, 
and he exclaimed, with a heart full of surprise and 
pleasure, "And so, to provide me with this splendid 
armor and dress, you have been depriving yourself of 
all your finest and most beautiful ornaments!" 

"No," said Panthea, "you are yourself my finest 
ornament, if you appear in other people's eyes as you 
do in mine, and I have not deprived myself of you." 

The appearance which Abradates made in other 
people's eyes was certainly very splendid on this oc- 
casion. There were many spectators present to see 
him mount his chariot and drive away; but so great 
was their admiration of Panthea's affection and re- 
gard for her husband, and so much impressed were 
they with her beauty, that the great chariot, the re- 
splendent horses, and the grand warrior with his ar- 
mor of gold, which the magnificent equipage was 
intended to convey, were, all together, scarcely able 
to draw away the eyes of the spectators from her. 
She stood for a while, by the side of the chariot, ad- 



212 CYRUS THE GREAT 

dressing her husband in an under tone, reminding 
him of the obligations which they were under to Cy- 
rus for his generous and noble treatment of her, and 
urging him, now that he was going to be put to the 
test, to redeem the promise which she had made in 
his name, that Cyrus would find him faithful, brave, 
and true. 

The driver then closed the door by which Abra- 
dates had mounted, so that Panthea was separated 
from her husband, though she could still see him as 
he stood in his place. She gazed upon him with a 
countenance full of affection and solicitude. She 
kissed the margin of the chariot as it began to move 
away. She walked along after it as it went, as if, 
after all, she could not bear the separation. Abradates 
turned, and when he saw her coming on after the 
carriage, he said, waving his hand for a parting salu- 
tation, "Farewell, Panthea; go back now to your tent, 
and do not be anxious about me. Farewell." Pan- 
thea turned — her attendants came and took her 
away — the spectators all turned, too, to follow her 
with their eyes, and no one paid any regard to the 
chariot or to Abradates until she was gone. 

On the field of battle, before the engagement com- 
menced, Cyrus, in passing along the lines, paused, 
when he came to the chariots of Abradates, to exam- 
ine the arrangements which had been made for them, 
and to converse a moment with the chief. He saw 



STORY OF PANTHEA 213 

that the chariots were drawn up in a part of the field 
where there was opposed to them a very formidable 
array of Egyptian soldiers. The Egyptians in this 
war were allies of the enemy. Abradates, leaving his 
chariot in the charge of his driver, descended and 
came to Cyrus, and remained in conversation with 
him for a few moments, to receive his last orders. 
Cyrus directed him to remain where he was, and not 
to attack the enemy until he received a certain sig- 
nal. At length the two chieftains separated; Abra- 
dates returned to his chariot, and Cyrus moved on. 
Abradates then moved slowly along his lines, to en- 
courage and animate his men, and to give them the 
last directions in respect to the charge which they 
were about to make on the enemy when the signal 
should be given. All eyes were turned to the mag- 
nificent spectacle which his equipage presented as it 
advanced toward them; the chariot, moving slowly 
along the line, the tall and highly-decorated form of 
its commander rising in the center of it, while the 
eight horses, animated by the sound of the trumpets, 
and by the various excitements of the scene, stepped 
proudly, their brazen armor clanking as they came. 

When, at length, the signal was given, Abradates, 
calling on the other chariots to follow, put his horses 
to their speed, and the whole line rushed impetuously 
on to the attack of the Egyptians. War horses, prop- 
erly trained to their work, will fight with their hoofs 



2i 4 CYRUS THE GREAT 

with almost as much reckless determination as men 
will with spears. They rush madly on to encounter 
whatever opposition there may be before them, and 
strike down and leap over whatever comes in their 
way, as if they fully understood the nature of the 
work that their riders or drivers were wishing them 
to do. Cyrus, as he passed along from one part of 
the battle field to another, saw the horses of Abra- 
dates's line dashing thus impetuously into the thickest 
ranks of the enemy. The men, on every side, were 
beaten down by the horses' hoofs, or overturned by 
the wheels, or cut down by the scythes; and they 
who here and there escaped these dangers, became 
the aim of the soldiers who stood in the chariots, 
and were transfixed with their spears. The heavy 
wheels rolled and jolted mercilessly over the bodies 
of the wounded and the fallen, while the scythes 
caught hold of and cut through every thing that came 
in their way — whether the shafts of javelins and 
spears, or the limbs and bodies of men — and tore 
every thing to pieces in their terrible career. As Cy- 
rus rode rapidly by, he saw Abradates in the midst 
of this scene, driving on in his chariot, and shouting 
to his men in a phrensy of excitement and triumph. 

The battle in which these events occurred was one 
of the greatest and most important which Cyrus fought. 
He gained the victory. His enemies were every where 
routed and driven from the field. When the contest 



STORY OF PANTHEA 215 

was at length decided, the army desisted from the 
slaughter and encamped for the night. On the fol- 
lowing day, the generals assembled at the tent of 
Cyrus to discuss the arrangements which were to be 
made in respect to the disposition of the captives and 
of the spoil, and to the future movements of the 
army. Abradates was not there. For a time, Cyrus, 
in the excitement and confusion of the scene, did not 
observe his absence. At length he inquired for him. 
A soldier present told him that he had been killed 
from his chariot in the midst of the Egyptians, and 
that his wife was at that moment attending to the 
interment of the body, on the banks of a river which 
flowed near the field of battle. Cyrus, on hearing 
this, uttered a loud exclamation of astonishment and 
sorrow. He dropped the business in which he had 
been engaged with his council, mounted his horse, 
commanded attendants to follow him with every 
thing that could be necessary on such an occasion, 
and then, asking those who knew to lead the way, 
he drove off to find Panthea. 

When he arrived at the spot, the dead body of 
Abradates was lying upon the ground, while Panthea 
sat by its side, holding the head in her lap, over- 
whelmed herself with unutterable sorrow. Cyrus 
leaped from his horse, knelt down by the side of the 
corpse, saying, at the same time, "Alas! thou brave 
and faithful soul, and art thou gone ? " 



216 CYRUS THE GREAT 

At the same time, he took hold of the hand of 
Abradates; but, as he attempted to raise it, the arm 
came away from the body. It had been cut off by 
an Egyptian sword. Cyrus was himself shocked at 
the spectacle, and Panthea's grief broke forth anew. 
She cried out with bitter anguish, replaced the arm 
in the position in which she had arranged it before, 
and told Cyrus that the rest of the body was in the 
same condition. Whenever she attempted to speak, 
her sobs and tears almost prevented her utterance. 
She bitterly reproached herself for having been, per- 
haps, the cause of her husband's death, by urging 
him, as she had done, to fidelity and courage when 
he went into battle. "And now," she said, "he is 
dead, while I, who urged him forward into the dan- 
ger, am still alive." 

Cyrus said what he could to console Panthea's 
grief; but he found it utterly inconsolable. He gave 
directions for furnishing her with every thing which 
she could need, and promised her that he would make 
ample arrangements for providing for her in future. 
"You shall be treated," he said, "while you remain 
with me, in the most honorable manner; or if you 
have any friends whom you wish to join, you shall 
be sent to them safely whenever you please." 

Panthea thanked him for his kindness. She had a 
friend, she said, whom she wished to join, and she 
would let him know in due time who it was. In 



STORY OF PANTHEA 217 

the mean time, she wished that Cyrus would leave 
her alone, for a while, with her servants, and her 
waiting-maid, and the dead body of her husband. 
Cyrus accordingly withdrew. As soon as he had 
gone, Panthea sent away the servants also, retaining 
the waiting-maid alone. The waiting-maid began to 
be anxious and concerned at witnessing these myste- 
rious arrangements, as if they portended some new 
calamity. She wondered what her mistress was going 
to do. Her doubts were dispelled by seeing Panthea 
produce a sword, which she had kept concealed 
hitherto beneath her robe. Her maid begged her, with 
much earnestness and many tears, not to destroy her- 
self; but Panthea was immovable. She said she could 
not live any longer. She directed the maid to en- 
velop her body, as soon as she was dead, in the same 
mantle with her husband, and to have them both de- 
posited together in the same grave; and before her 
stupefied attendant could do any thing to save her, 
she sat down by the side of her husband's body, laid 
her head upon his breast, and in that position gave 
herself the fatal wound. In a few minutes she ceased 
to breathe. 

Cyrus expressed his respect for the memory of 
Abradates and Panthea by erecting a lofty monument 
over their common grave. 



CHAPTER XI. 

Conversations. 

General character of Xenophon's history. — Dialogues and conversations. — An- 
cient mode of discussion. — Cyrus's games. — Grand procession. — The 
races. — The Sacian. — His success. — Mode of finding a worthy man. — 
Pheraulas wounded. — Pheraulas pursues his course. — He receives the 
Sacian's horse. — Sumptuous entertainment. — Pheraulas and the Sacian. 

— Riches a source of disquiet and care. — Argument of Pheraulas. — Re- 
mark of the Sacian. — Reply of Pheraulas. — Singular proposal of Pherau- 
las.— The Sacian accepts it.— The plan carried iuto effect.— The happy 
result. — Cyrus's dinner party. — Conversation about soldiers. — The dis- 
contented soldier.— His repeated misfortunes.— Amusement of the party. 

— The awkward squad.— Merriment of the company.— The file-leader 
and the letter. — Remark of Cyrus. — Animadversion of Aglaitadas. — 
Aglaitadas's argument for melancholy. — Defense of the officers. — Gen- 
eral character of Xenophon's Cyropsedia. 

We have given the story of Panthea, as con- 
tained in the preceding chapter, in our 
own language, it is true, but without any 
intentional addition or embellishment whatever. Each 
reader will judge for himself whether such a narrative, 
written for the entertainment of vast assemblies at 
public games and celebrations, is most properly to be 
regarded as an invention of romance, or as a simple 
record of veritable history. 

A great many extraordinary and dramatic incidents 
and adventures, similar in general character to the 
story of Panthea, are interwoven with the narrative in 

(2.8) 



CONVERSATIONS 219 

Xenophon's history. There are also, besides these, 
many long and minute details of dialogues and con- 
versations, which, if they had really occurred, would 
have required a very high degree of skill in stenogra- 
phy to produce such reports of them as Xenophon 
has given. The incidents, too, out of which these 
conversations grew, are worthy of attention, as we 
can often judge, by the nature and character of an 
incident described, whether it is one which it is 
probable might actually occur in real life, or only an 
invention intended to furnish an opportunity and a 
pretext for the inculcation of the sentiments, or the 
expression of the views of the different speakers. It 
was the custom in ancient days, much more than it 
is now, to attempt to add to the point and spirit of 
a discussion, by presenting the various views which 
the subject naturally elicited in the form of a con- 
versation arising out of circumstances invented to 
sustain it. The incident in such cases was, of course, 
a fiction, contrived to furnish points of attachment for 
the dialogue — a sort of trellis, constructed artificially 
to support the vine. 

We shall present in this chapter some specimens 
of these conversations, which will give the reader a 
much more distinct idea of the nature of them than 
any general description can convey. 

At one time in the course of Cyrus's career, just 
after he had obtained some great victory, and was 



220 CYRUS THE GREAT 

celebrating his triumphs, in the midst of his armies, 
with spectacles and games, he instituted a series of 
races, in which the various nations that were repre- 
sented in his army furnished their several champions 
as competitors. The army marched out from the city 
which Cyrus had captured, and where he was then 
residing, in a procession of the most imposing mag- 
nificence. Animals intended to be offered in sacrifice, 
caparisoned in trappings of gold, horsemen most 
sumptuously equipped, chariots of war splendidly built 
and adorned, and banners and trophies of every kind, 
were conspicuous in the train. When the vast pro- 
cession reached the race-ground, the immense con- 
course was formed in ranks around it, and the racing 
went on. 

When it came to the turn of the Sacian nation to 
enter the course, a private man, of no apparent im- 
portance in respect to his rank or standing, came 
forward as the champion; though the man appeared 
insignificant, his horse was as fleet as the wind. He 
flew around the arena with astonishing speed, and 
came in at the goal while his competitor was still 
midway of the course. Every body was astonished 
at this performance. Cyrus asked the Sacian whether 
he would be willing to sell that horse, if he could 
receive a kingdom in exchange for it — kingdoms be- 
ing the coin with which such sovereigns as Cyrus 
made their purchases. The Sacian replied that he 



CONVERSATIONS 221 

would not sell his horse for any kingdom, but that 
he would readily give him away to oblige a worthy 
man. 

"Come with me," said Cyrus, "and I will show 
you where you may throw blindfold, and not miss a 
worthy man." 

So saying, Cyrus conducted the Sacian to a part 
of the field where a number of his officers and at- 
tendants were moving to and fro, mounted upon their 
horses, or seated in their chariots of war. The Sacian 
took up a hard clod of earth from a bank as he 
walked along. At length they were in the midst of 
the group. 

"Throw!" said Cyrus. 

The Sacian shut his eyes and threw. 

It happened that, just at that instant, an officer 
named Pheraulas was riding by. He was conveying 
orders which Cyrus had given him to another part 
of the field. Pheraulas had been originally a man of 
humble life, but he had been advanced by Cyrus to a 
high position on account of the great fidelity and 
zeal which he had evinced in the performance of his 
duty. The clod which the Sacian threw struck Phe- 
raulas in the mouth, and wounded him severely. 
Now it is the part of a good soldier to stand at his 
post or to press on, in obedience to his orders, as 
long as any physical capacity remains; and Pheraulas, 
true to his military obligation, rode on without even 



222 CYRUS THE GREAT 

turning to see whence and from what cause so unex- 
pected and violent an assault had proceeded. 

The Sacian opened his eyes, looked around, and 
coolly asked who it was that he had hit. Cyrus 
pointed to the horseman who was riding rapidly 
away, saying, "That is the man, who is riding so 
fast past those chariots yonder. You hit him." 

"Why did he not turn back, then?" asked the 
Sacian. 

"It is strange that he did not," said Cyrus; "he 
must be some madman." 

The Sacian went in pursuit of him. He found 
Pheraulas with his face covered with blood and dirt, 
and asked him if he had received a blow. " I have," 
said Pheraulas, " as you see." "Then," said the Sa- 
cian, "I make you a present of my horse." Phe- 
raulas asked an explanation. The Sacian accordingly 
gave him an account of what had taken place be- 
tween himself and Cyrus, and said, in the end, that 
he gladly gave him his horse, as he, Pheraulas, had 
so decisively proved himself to be a most worthy 
man. 

Pheraulas accepted the present with many thanks, 
and he and the Sacian became thereafter very strong 
friends. 

Some time after this, Pheraulas invited the Sacian 
to an entertainment, and when the hour arrived, he 
set before his friend and the other guests a most 



CONVERSATIONS 223 

sumptuous feast, which was served in vessels of gold 
and silver, and in an apartment furnished with carpets, 
and canopies, and couches of the most gorgeous and 
splendid description. The Sacian was much im- 
pressed with this magnificence, and he asked Phe- 
raulas whether he had been a rich man at home, that 
is, before he had joined Cyrus's army. Pheraulas 
replied that he was not then rich. His father, 
he said, was a farmer, and he himself had been ac- 
customed in early life to till the ground with the 
other laborers on his father's farm. All the wealth 
and luxury which he now enjoyed had been bestowed 
upon him, he said, by Cyrus. 

"How fortunate you are!" said the Sacian; "and 
it must be that you enjoy your present riches all the 
more highly on account of having experienced in 
early life the inconveniences and ills of poverty. The 
pleasure must be more intense in having desires 
which have long been felt gratified at last than if the 
objects which they rested upon had been always in 
one's possession." 

"You imagine, I suppose," replied Pheraulas, "that 
I am a great deal happier in consequence of all this 
wealth and splendor; but it is not so. As to the 
real enjoyments of which our natures are capable, I 
can not receive more now than I could before. I can 
not eat any more, drink any more, or sleep any 
more, or do any of these things with any more 



224 CYRUS THE GREAT 

pleasure than when I was poor. All that I gain by 
this abundance is, that I have more to watch, more 
to guard, more to take care of. I have many serv- 
ants, for whose wants I have to provide, and who 
are a constant source of solicitude to me. One calls 
for food, another for clothes, and a third is sick, and 
I must see that he has a physician. My other pos- 
sessions, too, are a constant care. A man comes in, 
one day, and brings me sheep that have been torn 
by the wolves; and, on another day, tells me of oxen 
that have fallen from a precipice, or of a distemper 
which has broken out among the flocks or herds. 
My wealth, therefore, brings me only an increase of 
anxiety and trouble, without any addition to my 
joys." 

"But those things," said the Sacian, "which you 
name, must be unusual and extraordinary occur- 
rences. When all things are going on prosperously 
and well with you, and you can look around on all 
your possessions and feel that they are yours, then 
certainly you must be happier than I am." 

"It is true," said Pheraulas, "that there is a pleas- 
ure in the possession of wealth, but that pleasure is 
not great enough to balance the suffering which the 
calamities and losses inevitably connected with it oc- 
casion. That the suffering occasioned by losing our 
possessions is greater than the pleasure of retaining 
them, is proved by the fact that the pain of a loss is 



CONVERSATIONS 225 

so exciting to the mind that it often deprives men 01 
sleep, while they enjoy the most calm and quiet re- 
pose so long as their possessions are retained, which 
proves that the pleasure does not move them so 
deeply. They are kept awake by the vexation and 
chagrin on the one hand, but they are never kept 
awake by the satisfaction on the other." 

"That is true," replied the Sacian. "Men are not 
kept awake by the mere continuing to possess their 
wealth, but they very often are by the original acqui- 
sition of it." 

"Yes, indeed," replied Pheraulas; "and if the en- 
joyment of being rich could always continue as great 
as that of first becoming so, the rich would, I admit, 
be very happy men; but it is not, and can not be 
so. They who possess much, must lose, and expend, 
and give much; and this necessity brings more of 
pain than the possessions themselves can give of 
pleasure." 

The Sacian was not convinced. The giving and 
expending, he maintained, would be to him, in itself, 
a source of pleasure. He should like to have much, 
for the very purpose of being able to expend much. 
Finally, Pheraulas proposed to the Sacian, since he 
seemed to think that riches would afford him so 
much pleasure, and as he himself, Pheraulas, found 
the possession of them only a source of trouble and 
care, that he would convey all his wealth to the Sa- 

M. of H.— 11— 15 



226 CYRUS THE GREAT 

cian, he himself to receive only an ordinary main- 
tenance from it. 

"You are in jest," said the Sacian. 

"No," said Pheraulas, "I am in earnest." And he 
renewed his proposition, and pressed the Sacian ur- 
gently to accept of it. 

The Sacian then said that nothing could give him 
greater pleasure than such an arrangement. He ex- 
pressed great gratitude for so generous an offer, and 
promised that, if he received the property, he would 
furnish Pheraulas with most ample and abundant sup- 
plies for all his wants, and would relieve him entirely 
of all responsibility and care. He promised, moreover, 
to obtain from Cyrus permission that Pheraulas should 
thereafter be excused from the duties of military serv- 
ice, and from all the toils, privations, and hardships 
of war, so that he might thenceforth lead a life of 
quiet, luxury, and ease, and thus live in the enjoy- 
ment of all the benefits which wealth could procure, 
without its anxieties and cares. 

The plan, thus arranged, was carried into effect. 
Pheraulas divested himself of his possessions, convey- 
ing them all to the Sacian. Both parties were extremely 
pleased with the operation of the scheme, and they 
lived thus together for a long time. Whatever Phe- 
raulas acquired in any way, he always brought to the 
Sacian, and the Sacian, by accepting it, relieved Phe- 
raulas of all responsibility and care. The Sacian loved 



CONVERSATIONS 227 

Pheraulas, as Xenophon says, in closing this narrative, 
because he was thus continually bringing him gifts; 
and Pheraulas loved the Sacian, because he was al- 
ways willing to take the gifts which were thus 
brought to him. 

Among the other conversations, whether real or 
imaginary, which Xenophon records, he gives some 
specimens of those which took place at festive enter- 
tainments in Cyrus's tent, on occasions when he in- 
vited his officers to dine with him. He commenced 
the conversation, on one of these occasions, by in- 
quiring of some of the officers present whether they 
did not think that the common soldiers were equal 
to the officers themselves in intelligence, courage, 
and military skill, and in all the other substantial 
qualities of a good soldier. 

"I know not how that may be," replied one of the 
officers. "How they will prove when they come into 
action with the enemy, I can not tell; but a more 
perverse and churlish set of fellows in camp, than 
those I have got in my regiment, I never knew. The 
other day, for example, when there had been a sacri- 
fice, the meat of the victims was sent around to be 
distributed to the soldiers. In our regiment, when 
the steward came in with the first distribution, he 
began by me, and so went round, as far as what he 
had brought would go. The next time he came, 
be began at the other end. The supply failed before 



228 CYRUS THE GREAT 

he had got to the place where he had left off before, 
so that there was a man in the middle that did not 
get any thing. This man immediately broke out in 
loud and angry complaints, and declared that there 
was no equality or fairness whatever in such a mode 
of division, unless they began sometimes in the cen- 
ter of the line. 

"Upon this," continued the officer, "I called to 
the discontented man, and invited him to come and 
sit by me, where he would have a better chance for 
a good share. He did so. It happened that, at the 
next distribution that was made, we were the last, 
and he fancied that only the smallest pieces were left, 
so he began to complain more than before. ' Oh, 
misery!' said he, 'that I should have to sit here!' 
'Be patient,' said I; 'pretty soon they will begin the 
distribution with us, and then you will have the best 
chance of all.' And so it proved; for, at the next 
distribution, they began at us, and the man took his 
share first; but when the second and third men took 
theirs, he fancied that their pieces looked larger than 
his, and he reached forward and put his piece back 
into the basket, intending to change it; but the stew- 
ard moved rapidly on, and he did not get another, so 
that he lost his distribution altogether. He was then 
quite furious with rage and vexation." 

Cyrus and all the company laughed very heartily 
at these mischances of greediness and discontent; and 



CONVERSATIONS 229 

then other stories, of a somewhat similar character, 
were told by other guests. One officer said that a 
few days previous he was drilling a part of his troops, 
and he had before him on the plain what is called, 
in military language, a squad of men, whom he was 
teaching to march. When he gave the order to ad- 
vance, one, who was at the head of the file, marched 
forward with great alacrity, but all the rest stood 
still. "I asked him," continued the officer, "what 
he was doing. 'Marching,' said he, 'as you ordered 
me to do.' 'It was not you alone that I ordered to 
march,' said I, 'but all.' So I sent him back to his 
place, and then gave the command again. Upon this 
they all advanced promiscuously and in disorder to- 
ward me, each one acting for himself, without regard 
to the others, and leaving the file-leader, who ought 
to have been at the head, altogether behind. The 
file-leader said, 'Keep back! keep back!' Upon this 
the men were offended, and asked what they were 
to do about such contradictory orders. 'One com- 
mands us to advance, and another to keep back!' 
said they; 'how are we to know which to obey?'" 

Cyrus and his guests were so much amused at 
the awkwardness of these recruits, and the ridiculous 
predicament in which the officer was placed by it, 
that the narrative of the speaker was here interrupted 
by universal and long-continued laughter. 

"Finally," continued the officer, "I sent the men 



230 CYRUS THE GREAT 

.all back to their places, and explained to them that, 
when a command was given, they were not to obey 
it in confusion and unseemly haste, but regularly and 
in order, each one following the man who stood be- 
fore him. 'You must regulate your proceeding,' said 
I, 'by the action of the file-leader; when he advances, 
you must advance, following him in a line, and gov- 
erning your movements in all respects by his.' 

"Just at this moment," continued the officer, "a 
man came to me for a letter which was to go to 
Persia, and which I had left in my tent. I directed 
the file-leader to run to my tent and bring the letter 
to me. He immediately set off, and the rest, obey- 
ing literally the directions which I had just been giving 
them, all followed, running behind him in a line like a 
troop of savages, so that I had the whole squad of twenty 
men running in a body off the field to fetch a letter!" 

When the general hilarity which these recitals oc- 
casioned had a little subsided, Cyrus said he thought 
that they could not complain of the character of the 
soldiers whom they had to command, for they were 
certainly, according to these accounts, sufficiently 
ready to obey the orders they received. Upon this, 
a certain one of the guests who was present, named 
Aglaitadas, a gloomy and austere-looking man, who 
had not joined at all in the merriment which the con- 
versation had caused, asked Cyrus if he believed those 
stories to be true. 



CONVERSATIONS 231 

"Why?" asked Cyrus; "what do you think of 
them ? " 

"/ think," said Aglaitadas, "that these officers in- 
vented them to make the company laugh. It is evi- 
dent that they were not telling the truth, since they 
related the stories in such a vain and arrogant way." 

"Arrogant!" said Cyrus; "you ought not to call 
them arrogant; for, even if they invented their nar- 
rations, it was not to gain any selfish ends of their 
own, but only to amuse us and promote our enjoy- 
ment. Such persons should be called polite and 
agreeable rather than arrogant." 

"If, Aglaitadas," said one of the officers who had 
related the anecdotes, "we had told you melancholy 
stories to make you gloomy and wretched, you might 
have been justly displeased; but you certainly ought 
not to complain of us for making you merry." 

"Yes," said Aglaitadas, "I think I may. To make 
a man laugh is a very insignificant and useless thing. 
It is far better to make him weep. Such thoughts 
and such conversation as makes us serious, thought- 
ful, and sad, and even moves us to tears, are the 
most salutary and the best." 

"Well," replied the officer, " if you will take my 
advice, you will lay out all your powers of inspiring 
gloom, and melancholy, and of bringing tears, upon 
our enemies, and bestow the mirth and laughter upon 
us. There must be a prodigious deal of laughter in 



232 CYRUS THE GREAT 

you, for none ever comes out. You neither use nor 
expend it yourself, nor do you afford it to your friends." 

"Then," said Aglaitadas, "why do you attempt to 
draw it from me?" 

"It is preposterous!" said another of the com- 
pany; "for one could more easily strike fire out of 
Aglaitadas than get a laugh from him!" 

Aglaitadas could not help smiling at this compar- 
ison; upon which Cyrus, with an air of counterfeited 
gravity, reproved the person who had spoken, saying 
that he had corrupted the most sober man in the 
company by making him smile, and that to disturb 
such gravity as that of Aglaitadas was carrying the 
spirit of mirth and merriment altogether too far. 

These specimens will suffice. They serve to give 
a more distinct idea of the Cyropaedia of Xenophon 
than any general description could afford. The book 
is a drama, of which the principal elements are such 
narratives as the story of Panthea, and such conver- 
sations as those contained in this chapter, intermingled 
with long discussions on the principles of government, 
and on the discipline and management of armies. The 
principles and the sentiments which the work incul- 
cates and explains are now of little value, being no 
longer applicable to the affairs of mankind in the al- 
tered circumstances of the present day. The book, 
however, retains its rank among men on account of 



CONVERSATIONS 233 

a certain beautiful and simple magnificence character- 
izing the style and language in which it is written, 
which, however, can not be appreciated except by 
those who read the narrative in the original tongue. 




CHAPTER XII. 

The Death of Cyrus. 

Progress of Cyrus's conquests.— The northern countries.— The Scythians.— 
Their warlike character.— Cyrus's sons.— His queen.— The Massagetse.— 
Queen Tomyris.— Spargapizes.— Selfish views of Cyrus.— Customs of the 
savages.— Cyrus arrives at the Araxes.— Difficulties of crossing the river. 

— Embassage from Tomyris.— Warning of Tomyris.— Cyrus calls a 
council of war.— Opinion of the officers.— Dissent of Croesus.— Speech 
of Crcesus.— His advice to Cyrus.— Cyrus adopts the plan of Crcesus. 

His reply to Tomyris. — Forebodings of Cyrus.— He appoints Cam- 

byses regent. — Hystaspes. — His son Darius. — Cyrus's dream. — Hystas- 
pes's commission. — Cyrus marches into the queen's country. — Success of 
the stratagem. — Spargapizes taken prisoner. — Tomyris's concern for her 
son's safety.— Her conciliatory message.— Mortification of Spargapizes. 

— Cyrus gives him liberty within the camp.— Death of Spargapizes.— 
Grief and rage of Tomyris.— The great battle.— Cyrus is defeated and 
slain.— Tomyris's treatment of Cyrus's body.— Reflections.— Hard- 
heartedness, selfishness, and cruelty characterize the ambitious. 

After having made the conquest of the Babylo- 
nian empire, Cyrus found himself the sovereign 
of nearly all of Asia, so far as it was then 
known. Beyond his dominions there lay, on every 
side, according to the opinions which then prevailed, 
vast tracts of uninhabitable territory, desolate and im- 
passable. These wildernesses were rendered unfit for 
man, sometimes by excessive heat, sometimes by ex- 
cessive cold, sometimes from being parched by per- 
petual, drought, which produced bare and desolate 
deserts, and sometimes by incessant rains, which 
(234) 



B.C. 530] DEATH OF CYRUS 235 

drenched the country and filled it with morasses and 
fens. On the north was the great Caspian Sea, then 
almost wholly unexplored, and extending, as the an- 
cients believed, to the Polar Ocean. 

On the west side of the Caspian Sea were the 
Caucasian Mountains, which were supposed, in those 
days, to be the highest on the globe. In the neigh- 
borhood of these mountains there was a country, in- 
habited by a wild and half-savage people, who were 
called Scythians. This was, in fact, a sort of generic 
term, which was applied, in those days, to almost all 
the aboriginal tribes beyond the confines of civiliza- 
tion. The Scythians, however, if such they can 
properly be called, who lived on the borders of the 
Caspian Sea, were not wholly uncivilized. They pos- 
sessed many of those mechanical arts which are the 
first to be matured among warlike nations. They 
had no iron or steel, but they were accustomed to 
work other metals, particularly gold and brass. They 
tipped their spears and javelins with brass, and made 
brazen plates for defensive armor, both for themselves 
and for their horses. They made, also, many orna- 
ments and decorations of gold. These they attached 
to their helmets, their belts, and their banners. They 
were very formidable in war, being, like all other 
northern nations, perfectly desperate and reckless in 
battle. They were excellent horsemen, and had an 
abundance of horses with which to exercise their 



236 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 530 

skill; so that their armies consisted, like those of the 
Cossacks of modern times, of great bodies of cavalry. 

The various campaigns and conquests by which 
Cyrus obtained possession of his extended dominions 
occupied an interval of about thirty years. It was 
near the close of this interval, when he was, in fact, 
advancing toward a late period of life, that he formed 
the plan of penetrating into these northern regions, 
with a view of adding them also to his domains. 

He had two sons, Cambyses and Smerdis. His 
wife is said to have been a daughter of Astyages, 
and that he married her soon after his conquest of 
the kingdom of Media, in order to reconcile the Me- 
dians more easily to his sway, by making a Median 
princess their queen. Among the western nations of 
Europe such a marriage would be abhorred, Astyages 
having been Cyrus's grandfather; but among the Ori- 
entals, in those days, alliances of this nature were 
not uncommon. It would seem that this queen was 
not living at the time that the events occurred which 
are to be related in this chapter. Her sons had 
grown up to maturity and were now princes of great 
distinction. 

One of the Scythian or northern nations to which 
we have referred were called the Massagetae. They 
formed a very extensive and powerful realm. They 
were governed, at this time, by a queen named 
Tomyris. She was a widow, past middle life. She 



B.C. 530] DEATH OF CYRUS 237 

had a son named Spargapizes, who had, like the sons 
of Cyrus, attained maturity, and was the heir to the 
throne. Spargapizes was, moreover, the commander- 
in-chief of the armies of the queen. 

The first plan which Cyrus formed for the annexa- 
tion of the realm of the Massagetae to his own 
dominions was by a matrimonial alliance. He ac- 
cordingly raised an army and commenced a movement 
toward the north, sending, at the same time, embas- 
sadors before him into the country of the Massagetae, 
with offers of marriage to the queen. The queen 
knew very well that it was her dominions, and not 
herself, that constituted the great attraction for Cyrus, 
and, besides, she was of an age when ambition is a 
stronger passion than love. She refused the offers, 
and sent back word to Cyrus forbidding his approach. 

Cyrus, however, continued to move on. The 
boundary between his dominions and those of the 
queen was at the River Araxes, a stream flowing 
from west to east, through the central parts of Asia, 
toward the Caspian Sea. As Cyrus advanced, he 
found the country growing more and more wild and 
desolate. It was inhabited by savage tribes, who 
lived on roots and herbs, and who were elevated 
very little, in any respect, above the wild beasts that 
roamed in the forests around them. They had one 
very singular custom, according to Herodotus. It 
seems that there was a plant which grew among 



238 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 530 

them, that bore a fruit, whose fumes, when it was 
roasting on a fire, had an exhilarating effect, like that 
produced by wine. These savages, therefore, Herod- 
otus says, were accustomed to assemble around a 
fire, in their convivial festivities, and to throw some 
of this fruit in the midst of it. The fumes emitted 
by the fruit would soon begin to intoxicate the whole 
circle, when they would throw on more fruit, and 
become more and more excited, until, at length, they 
would jump up, and dance about, and sing, in a 
state of complete inebriation. 

Among such savages as these, and through the 
forests and wildernesses in which they lived, Cyrus 
advanced till he reached the Araxes. Here, after con- 
sidering, for some time, by what means he could best 
pass the river, he determined to build a floating 
bridge, by means of boats and rafts obtained from 
the natives on the banks, or built for the purpose. 
It would be obviously much easier to transport the 
army by using these boats and rafts to float the men 
across, instead of constructing a bridge with them; 
but this would not have been safe, for the transpor- 
tation of the army by such a means would be gradual 
and slow; and if the enemy were lurking in the 
neighborhood, and should make an attack upon them 
in the midst of the operation, while a part of the 
army were upon one bank and a part upon the other, 
and another portion still, perhaps, in boats upon the 



B.C. 530] DEATH OF CYRUS 239 

stream, the defeat and destruction of the whole would 
be almost inevitable. Cyrus planned the formation of 
the bridge, therefore, as a means of transporting his 
army in a body, and of landing them on the opposite 
bank in solid columns, which could be formed into 
order of battle without any delay. 

While Cyrus was engaged in the work of con- 
structing the bridge, embassadors appeared, who said 
that they had been sent from Tomyris. She had com- 
missioned them, they said, to warn Cyrus to desist 
entirely from his designs upon her kingdom, and to 
return to his own. This would be the wisest course, 
too, Tomyris said, for himself, and she counseled him, 
for his own welfare, to follow it. He could not fore- 
see the result, if he should invade her dominions and 
encounter her armies. Fortune had favored him thus 
far, it was true, but fortune might change, and he 
might find himself, before he was aware, at the end 
of his victories. Still, she said, she had no expecta- 
tion that he would be disposed to listen to this warn- 
ing and advice, and, on her part, .she had no ob- 
jection to his persevering in his invasion. She did 
not fear him. He need not put himself to the ex- 
pense and trouble of building a bridge across the 
Araxes. She would agree to withdraw all her forces 
three days' march into her own country, so that he 
might cross the river safely and at his leisure, and she 
would await him at the place where she should have 



2 4 o CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 530 

encamped; or, if he preferred it, she would cross the 
river and meet him on his own side. In that case, 
he must retire three days' march from the river, so as 
to afford her the same opportunity to make the pas- 
sage undisturbed which she had offered him. She 
would then come over and march on to attack him. 
She gave Cyrus his option which branch of this alter- 
native to choose. 

Cyrus called a council of war to consider the ques- 
tion. He laid the case before his officers and generals, 
and asked for their opinion. They were unanimously 
agreed that it would be best for him to accede to the 
last of the two proposals made to him, viz., to draw 
back three days' journey toward his own dominions, 
and wait for Tomyris to come and attack him there. 

There was, however, one person present at this 
consultation, though not regularly a member of the 
council, who gave Cyrus different advice. This was 
Croesus, the fallen King of Lydia. Ever since the time 
of his captivity, he had been retained in the camp 
and in the household of Cyrus, and had often accom- 
panied him in his expeditions and campaigns. Though 
a captive he seems to have been a friend; at least, 
the most friendly relations appeared to subsist between 
him and his conqueror; and he often figures in his- 
tory as a wise and honest counselor to Cyrus, in the 
various emergencies in which he was placed. He 
was present on this occasion, and he dissented from 



B.C. 530] DEATH OF CYRUS 141 

the opinion which was expressed by the officers of 
the army. 

"I ought to apologize, perhaps," said he, "for 
presuming to offer any counsel, captive as I am; but 
I have derived, in the school of calamity and mis- 
fortune in which I have been taught, some advantages 
for learning wisdom which you have never enjoyed. 
It seems to me that it will be much better for you 
not to fall back, but to advance and attack Tomyris 
in her own dominions; for, if you retire in this man- 
ner, in the first place, the act itself is discreditable to 
you: it is a retreat. Then, if, in the battle that fol- 
lows, Tomyris conquers you, she is already advanced 
three days' march into your dominions, and she may 
go on, and, before you can take measures for raising 
another army, make herself mistress of your empire. 
On the other hand, if, in battle, you conquer her, 
you will be then six days' march back of the position 
which you would occupy if you were to advance now. 

"I will propose," continued Croesus, "the follow- 
ing plan: Cross the river according to Tomyris's 
offer, and advance the three days' journey into her 
country. Leave a small part of your force there, with 
a great abundance of your most valuable baggage and 
supplies — luxuries of all kinds, and rich wines, and 
such articles as the enemy will most value as plun- 
der. Then fall back with the main body of your 
army toward the river again, in a secret manner, and 

M. of H.— 11— 16 



242 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 530 

encamp in an ambuscade. The enemy will attack 
your advanced detachment. They will conquer them. 
They will seize the stores and supplies, and will sup- 
pose that your whole army is vanquished. They will 
fall upon the plunder in disorder, and the discipline 
of their army will be overthrown. They will go to 
feasting upon the provisions and to drinking the 
wines, and then, when they are in the midst of their 
festivities and revelry, you can come back suddenly 
with the real strength of your army, and wholly 
overwhelm them." 

Cyrus determined to adopt the plan which Croesus 
thus recommended. He accordingly gave answer to 
the embassadors of Tomyris that he would accede to 
the first of her proposals. If she would draw back 
from the river three days' march, he would cross it 
with his army as soon as practicable, and then come 
forward and attack her. The embassadors received 
this message, and departed to deliver it to their queen. 
She was faithful to her agreement, and drew her 
forces back to the place proposed, and left them there, 
encamped under the command of her son. 

Cyrus seems to have felt some forebodings in re- 
spect to the manner in which this expedition was to 
end. He was advanced in life, and not now as well 
able as he once was to endure the privations and 
hardships of such campaigns. Then, the incursion 
which he was to make was into a remote, and wild, 



CAMBYSES KILLING THE EGYPTIAN APIS 



B.C. 530] DEATH OF CYRUS 143 

and dangerous country, and he could not but be aware 
that he might never return. Perhaps he may have 
had some compunctions of conscience, too, at thus 
wantonly disturbing the peace and invading the ter- 
ritories of an innocent neighbor, and his mind may 
have been the less at ease on that account. At any rate, 
he resolved to settle the affairs of his government 
before he set out, in order to secure both the tranquil- 
lity of the country while he should be absent, and the 
regular transmission of his power to his decendants 
in case he should never return. 

Accordingly, in a very formal manner, and in the 
presence of all his army, he delegated his power to 
Cambyses, his son, constituting him regent of the realm 
during his absence. He committed Croesus to his son's 
special care, charging him to pay him every atten- 
tion and honor. It was arranged that these persons, 
as well as a considerable portion of the army, and a 
large number of attendants that had followed the 
camp thus far, were not to accompany the expedition 
across the river, but were to remain behind and return 
to the capital. These arrangements being all thus 
finally made, Cyrus took leave of his^ son and of 
Croesus, crossed the river with that part of the army 
which was to proceed, and commenced his march. 

The uneasiness and anxiety which Cyrus seems to 
have felt in respect to his future fate on this memo- 
rable march affected even his dreams. It seems that 



244 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 530 

there was among the officers of his army a certain 
general named Hystaspes. He had a son named Da- 
rius, then a youth of about twenty years of age, who 
had been left at home, in Persia, when the army 
marched, not being old enough to accompany them. 
Cyrus dreamed, one night, immediately after crossing 
the river, that he saw this young Darius with wings 
on his shoulders, that extended, the one over Asia 
and the other over Europe, thus overshadowing the 
world. When Cyrus awoke and reflected upon his 
dream, it seemed to him to portend that Darius 
might be aspiring to the government of his empire. 
He considered it a warning intended to put him on 
his guard. 

When he awoke in the morning, he sent for 
Hystaspes, and related to him his dream. "I am 
satisfied," said he, "that it denotes that your son is 
forming ambitious and treasonable designs. Do you, 
therefore, return home, and arrest him in this fatal 
course. Secure him, and let him be ready to give 
me an account of his conduct when I shall return." 

Hystaspes, having received this commission, left 
the army and returned. The name of this Hystaspes 
acquired a historical immortality in a very singular 
way, that is, by being always used as a part of the 
appellation by which to designate his distinguished 
son. In after years Darius did attain to a very ex- 
tended power. He became Darius the Great. As, 



B.C. 530] DEATH OF CYRUS 245 

however, there were several other Persian monarchs 
called Darius, some of whom were nearly as great as 
this the first of the name, the usage was gradually 
established of calling him Darius Hystaspes; and thus 
the name of the father has become familiar to all 
mankind, simply as a consequence and pendant to 
the celebrity of the son. 

After sending off Hystaspes, Cyrus went on. He 
followed, in all respects, the plan of Croesus. He 
marched his army into the country of Tomyris, and 
advanced until he reached the point agreed upon. 
Here he stationed a feeble portion of his army, with 
great stores of provisions and wines, and abundance 
of such articles as would be prized by the barbarians 
as booty. He then drew back with the main body 
of his army toward the Araxes, and concealed his 
forces in a hidden encampment. The result was as 
Croesus had anticipated. The body which he had left 
was attacked by the troops of Tomyris, and effectually 
routed. The provisions and stores fell into the hands 
of the victors. They gave themselves up to the most 
unbounded joy, and their whole camp was soon a 
universal scene of rioting and excess. Even the com- 
mander, Spargapizes, Tomyris's son, became intoxi- 
cated with the wine. 

While things were in this state, the main body of 
the army of Cyrus returned suddenly and unexpect- 
edly, and fell upon their now helpless enemies with 



246 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 530 

a force which entirely overwhelmed them. The booty 
was recovered, large numbers of the enemy were 
slain, and others were taken prisoners. Spargapizes 
himself was captured; his hands were bound; he was 
taken into Cyrus's camp, and closely guarded. 

The result of this stratagem, triumphantly success- 
ful as it was, would have settled the contest, and 
made Cyrus master of the whole realm, if r as he, at 
the time, supposed was the case, the main body of 
Tomyris's forces had been engaged in this battle; but 
it seems that Tomyris had learned, by reconnoiterers 
and spies, how large a force there was in Cyrus's 
camp, and had only sent a detachment of her own 
troops to attack them, not judging it necessary to 
call out the whole. Two thirds of her army remained 
still uninjured. With this large force she would un- 
doubtedly have advanced without any delay to attack 
Cyrus again, were it not for her maternal concern for 
the safety of her son. He was in Cyrus's power, a 
helpless captive, and she did not know to what 
cruelties he would be exposed if Cyrus were to be 
exasperated against her. While her heart, therefore, 
was burning with resentment and anger, and with an 
almost uncontrollable thirst for revenge, her hand was 
restrained. She kept back her army, and sent to 
Cyrus a conciliatory message. 

She said to Cyrus that -he had no cause to be 
specially elated at his victory; that it was only one 



B.C. 530] DEATH OF CYRUS 247 

third of her forces that had been engaged, and that 
with the remainder she held him completely in her 
power. She urged him, therefore, to be satisfied with 
the injury which he had already inflicted upon her 
by destroying one third of her army, and to liberate 
her son, retire from her dominions, and leave her in 
peace. If he would do so, she would not molest him 
in his departure; but if he would not, she swore by 
the sun, the great god which she and her country- 
men adored, that, insatiable as he was for blood, she 
would give it to him till he had his fill. 

Of course Cyrus was not to be frightened by such 
threats as these. He refused to deliver up the cap- 
tive prince, or to withdraw from the country, and 
both parties began to prepare again for war. 

Spargapizes was intoxicated when he was taken, 
and was unconscious of the calamity which had befallen 
him. When at length he awoke from his stupor, and 
learned the full extent of his misfortune, and of the 
indelible disgrace which he had incurred, he was 
overwhelmed with astonishment, disappointment, and 
shame. The more he reflected upon his condition, 
the more hopeless it seemed. Even if his life were 
to be spared, and if he were to recover his liberty, 
he never could recover his honor. The ignominy of 
such a defeat and such a captivity, he knew well, 
must be indelible. 

He begged Cyrus to loosen his bonds and allow 



248 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 530 

him personal liberty within the camp. Cyrus, pitying 
perhaps, his misfortunes, and the deep dejection and 
distress which they occasioned, acceded to this re- 
quest. Spargapizes watched an opportunity to seize 
a weapon when he was not observed by his guards, 
and killed himself. 

His mother Tomyris, when she heard of his fate, 
was frantic with grief and rage. She considered Cyrus 
as the wanton destroyer of the peace of her kingdom 
and the murderer of her son, and she had now no 
longer any reason for restraining her thirst for revenge. 
She immediately began to concentrate her forces, and 
to summon all the additional troops that she could 
obtain from every part of her kingdom. Cyrus, too, 
began in earnest to strengthen his lines, and to pre- 
pare for the great final struggle. 

At length the armies approached each other, and 
the battle began. The attack was commenced by 
the archers on either side, who shot showers of ar- 
rows at their opponents as they were advancing. 
When the arrows were spent, the men fought hand 
to hand, with spears, and javelins, and swords. The 
Persians fought desperately, for they fought for their 
lives. They were in the heart of an enemy's country, 
with a broad river behind them to cut off their retreat, 
and they were contending with a wild and savage 
foe, whose natural barbarity was rendered still more 
ferocious and terrible than ever by the exasperation 



B.C. 530] DEATH OF CYRUS 249 

which they felt, in sympathy with their injured 
queen. For a long time it was wholly uncertain 
which side would win the day. The advantage, here 
and there along the lines, was in some places on one 
side, and in some places on the other; but, though 
overpowered and beaten, the several bands, whether 
of Persians or Scythians, would neither retreat nor 
surrender, but the survivors, when their comrades had 
fallen, continued to fight on till they were all slain. 
It was evident, at last, that the Scythians were gain- 
ing the day. When night came on, the Persian army 
was found to be almost wholly destroyed; the rem- 
nant dispersed. When all was over, the Scythians, 
in exploring the field, found the dead body of Cyrus 
among the other ghastly and mutilated remains which 
covered the ground. They took it up with a fero- 
cious and exulting joy, and carried it to Tomyris. 

Tomyris treated it with every possible indignity. 
She cut and mutilated the lifeless form, as if it could 
still feel the injuries inflicted by her insane revenge. 
"Miserable wretch!" said she; "though I am in the 
end your conqueror, you have ruined my peace and 
happiness forever. You have murdered my son. But 
I promised you your fill of blood, and you shall have 
it." So saying, she filled a can with Persian blood, 
obtained, probably, by the execution of her captives, 
and, cutting off the head of her victim from the body, 



250 CYRUS THE GREAT [B.C. 530 

she plunged it in, exclaiming, "Drink there, insatia- 
ble monster, till your murderous thirst is satisfied." 

This was the end of Cyrus. Cambyses, his son, 
whom he had appointed regent during his absence, 
succeeded quietly to the government of his vast do- 
minions. 

In reflecting on this melancholy termination of this 
great conqueror's history, our minds naturally revert 
to the scenes of his childhood, and we wonder that 
so amiable, and gentle, and generous a boy should 
become so selfish, and unfeeling, and overbearing as 
a man. But such are the natural and inevitable ef- 
fects of ambition and an inordinate love of power. 
The history of a conqueror is always a tragical and 
melancholy tale. He begins life with an exhibition of 
great and noble qualities, which awaken in us, who 
read his history, the same admiration that was felt 
for him, personally, by his friends and countrymen 
while he lived, and on which the vast ascendency 
which he acquired over the minds of his fellow-men, 
and which led to his power and fame, was, in a 
great measure, founded. On the other hand, he ends 
life neglected, hated, and abhorred. His ambition has 
been gratified, but the gratification has brought with 
it no substantial peace or happiness; on the contrary, 
it has filled his soul with uneasiness, discontent, 
suspiciousness, and misery. The histories of heroes 
would be far less painful in the perusal if we could 



B.C. 530] DEATH OF CYRUS 251 

reverse this moral change of character, so as to have 
the cruelty, the selfishness, and the oppression ex- 
haust themselves in the comparatively unimportant 
transactions of early life, and the spirit of kindness, 
generosity, and beneficence blessing and beautifying 
its close. To be generous, disinterested, and noble, 
seems to be necessary as the precursor of great mili- 
tary success; and to be hard-hearted, selfish, and 
cruel is the almost inevitable consequence of it. The 
exceptions to this rule, though some of them are very 
splendid, are yet very few. 



THE END. 




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